Čáslav was built for the jet age. The base’s own history records that construction of the airfield began in 1952, in the flat farmland of Central Bohemia south-east of Kolín, and that the runway was completed and certified for operations in November 1954. The first flying came in 1955, when MiG-15s of the 8th Fighter Regiment from Prague-Kbely held tactical exercises there and the 6th Fighter Regiment was brought over temporarily from Sliač in Slovakia to convert to the MiG-15.

In November 1955 the 2nd Aviation Training Regiment arrived from Prostějov with MiG-15s and MiG-15UTI trainers, staying until November 1957, when it moved on to Hradec Králové. By then Čáslav had been chosen as a divisional base. An order of 18 July 1956 set up the headquarters of the 6th Fighter Division, the 20th Fighter Regiment, the 19th and 21st Airfield Battalions, a divisional repair shop and a radio-technical company.

On 1 October 1957 the 22nd Fighter Regiment was activated at Čáslav with MiG-15s. A year later the air force reshaped itself for ground attack. In September 1958 the 6th Fighter Division headquarters became the 34th Fighter-Bomber Division, and on 1 October 1958 the 22nd Regiment was merged with personnel of the disbanded 28th Ground Attack Regiment from Brno and renumbered as the 28th Fighter-Bomber Regiment. It inherited that unit’s honorific “Těšínský” and would stay at Čáslav for the rest of the Cold War.

The 28th Fighter-Bomber Regiment flew the MiG-15, later converted to the MiG-15SB fighter-bomber, until 1964, when the supersonic Sukhoi Su-7BM arrived, followed by the Su-7BKL. The base history dates the switch to the swing-wing MiG-23BN and its MiG-23U trainer to 1977. According to CzechAirForce.com, the runway was lengthened from 2,000 m to 2,400 m in 1964 for the Su-7, and last received a major concrete-and-asphalt overhaul in the 1970s, when the MiG-23BNs came.

The regiment trained to fly from roads as well as runways. Radim Špalek’s history of Czechoslovak motorway operations describes an exercise on 25–26 September 1980 on the D1 motorway near Měřín, where a section of roughly 2.4 km was used as a strip. Four MiG-23BNs of the regiment’s 1st Squadron flew from it armed with Kh-23 missiles and OFAB-100 bombs, while its 2nd and 3rd Squadrons flew simulated attacks on the strip with 26 Su-7BM/BKLs. The regiment returned to the Měřín section on 28 September 1982.

The regiment’s wartime tasks were never officially set out in public. CzechAirForce.com, writing in 2023, states that the MiG-23BNs of the Čáslav regiment were earmarked for nuclear operations and that crews received periodic practical training for them; no official Czech source confirming the detail has been found for this page.

The end came with the break-up of Czechoslovakia. After the 47th Reconnaissance Regiment was disbanded on 31 May 1993 its MiG-21R reconnaissance squadron joined the 28th at Čáslav, flying them for about a year more. The 28th Fighter-Bomber Regiment itself was disbanded on 31 December 1994, according to the helicopter-history site vrtulnik.cz, and its place was taken the next day by a new formation.

On 1 January 1995 the 4th Fighter Air Base was formed at Čáslav under the 4th Air Defence Corps. It gathered what was left of the fighter force: the 4th Independent Fighter Squadron from Přerov with MiG-21MFs and L-39ZAs, and from October 1994 the MiG-23MLs and L-39ZAs of the disbanded 1st Fighter Regiment “Zvolenský” from České Budějovice; in 1999 the base took the honorific “Zvolenská”, echoing that regiment’s name. At its formation it had three fighter squadrons and two Mi-17 helicopters for transport and rescue.

The base became the 4th Tactical Air Base in 1997. In 1998 the MiG-23ML was withdrawn and the base was cut to two squadrons, the 41st with MiG-21MFs and the 42nd with L-39ZAs. Selected MiG-21MFs were upgraded to MiG-21MFN standard with NATO-compatible navigation, and on 12 March 1999, the day the Czech Republic joined NATO, Čáslav was plugged into NATO’s integrated air-defence system, the MiG-21MFNs taking the alert.

The last MiG-21 years were not without cost. On 12 October 2000 two MiG-21MFNs of the 41st Squadron flew into forest near Chotěboř, killing Major Zdeněk Svoboda and Major Ivan Indrák. On 1 December 2003 the base was renamed the 21st Tactical Air Force Base and the 41st Squadron renumbered the 211th. On 12 July 2005 the last six MiG-21s left Čáslav, one for the Kbely museum and five for Přerov, where the type’s final Czech flight was made the next day, ending 43 years of service.

The Gripen came to Čáslav by a roundabout route. In April 2002 the government approved buying 24 JAS-39 Gripens for 60.2 billion koruna including weapons, but the purchase was not carried through. Instead, on 14 June 2004, Defence Minister Miroslav Kostelka and his Swedish counterpart Leni Björklund signed for a lease of 14 aircraft, 12 single-seat JAS-39Cs and two two-seat JAS-39Ds, for 19.65 billion koruna, running from 2005 to September 2015.

The first six JAS-39Cs landed at Čáslav on 18 April 2005, flown by mixed Czech and Swedish crews; the rest followed in August, the two-seaters 9819 and 9820 arriving on 31 August. Only 74 days after the first arrival, at 08:15 on 1 July 2005, the Gripens took over the alert from the MiG-21MFN. The first real scramble came on 24 August 2005. In March 2014 the lease was extended to 2027, and on 1 September 2025 a new contract kept 12 aircraft until 2035.

The 211th Tactical Squadron has about 170 people, roughly 20 of them fighter pilots, and seven technical flights each looking after two aircraft, according to its official page. The Gripens have been upgraded several times, gaining AIM-120C-5 AMRAAM missiles with full operational capability from 1 January 2009, Link 16, the MS20 software and PS-05/A Mk3 radar from 2018, and night-vision goggles in 2020. By spring 2025 the fleet had flown about 38,000 hours.

Čáslav’s Gripens are the Czech contribution to NATO air policing abroad. They flew from Šiauliai in Lithuania in 2009, 2012–2013 and 2022, from Keflavík in Iceland in 2014, 2015, 2016 and 2025, and from Ämari in Estonia in 2019–2020, typically with five to eight aircraft. The squadron joined the NATO Tiger Association as an honorary member in 1993, when its forebear was the 1st Fighter Squadron at Žatec, and has been a full member since 2010. The second Czech flying squadron at Čáslav, the 212th, has flown the Czech-built L-159 ALCA since it replaced the L-39ZA between 2000 and 2003.

Because it is the only Czech fighter base, Čáslav is also where allies come to train. In May 2015 it hosted Lion Effort, the Gripen users’ exercise, from 11 to 24 May: Sweden sent 11 Gripens and Hungary five, alongside six Czech Gripens and six L-159s, with four German Typhoons and two Polish F-16s joining in. It was during this exercise, on 19 May 2015, that a Hungarian JAS-39D overran runway 31 and was destroyed after both crew ejected.

Lion Effort returned to Čáslav from 14 to 23 May 2024. CzechAirForce.com reports about 500 personnel, around 150 of them from abroad, more than 200 sorties and over 300 flying hours, with Swedish and Hungarian Gripens, Czech Gripens and L-159s, and Thai observers. An A330 multi-role tanker, T-054, flew in support of the exercise on 16 May.

The base opens its gates to the public from time to time. In May 2023 Čáslav staged what the base called the largest open day in the history of the Czech armed forces, with more than 60,000 visitors, the first public appearance of US F-22 Raptors at such a Czech Army event, and one of the last displays of the Czech Mi-24/35 helicopters before they were retired. Admission was free.

On 29 January 2024 the Czech Republic signed for 24 F-35A Lightning IIs and named Čáslav as their home. The ministry puts the whole programme at about 150 billion koruna to 2034, of which nearly 44 billion is for infrastructure built by Czech firms. On 11 April 2025 a consortium of Metroprojekt Praha, AGA-Letiště and Techniserv won the design contract for the F-35 campus, worth 605 million koruna before VAT, according to CzechAirForce.com.

The first step is the runway. The 2,400 m concrete runway, some 70 years old, is being demolished and rebuilt by a consortium led by HOCHTIEF Infrastructure for 5.33 billion koruna before VAT, from April 2026 to autumn 2028, together with new airfield lighting. The Gripens began moving to Pardubice on 10 March 2026 and the L-159s to Náměšť nad Oslavou later that month, with flying from both airfields from 1 April. The army says its alert and training tasks are unchanged.

The F-35 campus is to be built from 2028 to 2030 in the north-western part of the base, with maintenance and operations hangars, a simulator centre, ammunition and fuel storage, two covered aircraft shelters and earth embankments with noise barriers about 13 m high. The infrastructure must be ready and accredited by the United States in 2031, when the first F-35As are due to move from the United States to Čáslav; the ministry expects full operational capability in 2035.

The works weigh on the neighbours. Construction traffic enters by a single access point on road I/38, where speed limits were cut, and the road from Čáslav to Vlačice is to be widened for 130-tonne vehicles. The mayor of Kutná Hora, Lukáš Seifert, named the village of Chotusice as the most affected, needing dust and noise protection, and a working group of mayors, the military and the ministry was being set up, the Kutnohorský deník reported in April 2026.