Monte Real sits in the pine country north-west of Leiria, between the city and the Atlantic coast. The Air Force’s own history starts in 1938, when the Aeroclube de Leiria flew from the site, and records that it served as a military aerodrome from 1941. Real construction came much later: the base proper was built between 1957 and 1959 and inaugurated as Base Aérea N.º 5 on 4 October 1959, a date the unit still keeps as its anniversary and on which it changes commanders.

It was a jet fighter base from the first day. Two squadrons, Esquadra 51 “Falcões” and Esquadra 52 “Galos”, received the North American F-86F Sabre, 50 aircraft at first and later 65. The base took the motto “Alcança Quem Não Cansa”, roughly “whoever does not tire, gets there”. Wikipedia, used here only as a finding aid, says the inauguration was performed by the President of the Republic, Admiral Américo Tomás.

Esquadra 52 lasted less than two years: it was deactivated on 12 July 1961, as the wars in Africa began to pull men and aircraft south. The Sabre stayed until 31 July 1980, retiring after 23 years and some 60,000 flying hours. From 1966 to 1973 the base also flew the Fiat G.91 to train pilots for the African theatres, and from June 1974 it took over complementary pilot training on the T-33A and later the T-38 Talon, which left for Beja with Esquadra 103 in January 1987.

The base’s first war came within two years of opening. According to the historian José Matos, writing in Revista Militar (no. 2584, May 2017), eight F-86Fs left Monte Real on 8 August 1961 under Operation Atlas and flew some 2,000 nautical miles via Montijo, Gando in the Canary Islands and Sal in Cape Verde, reaching Bissalanca near Bissau on 15 August. Eight pilots went with them, four officers and four sergeants, under Captain Ramiro de Almeida Santos. The Air Force’s base history dates the detachment from July 1961.

Over the next three years the detachment flew 577 missions, according to the Air Force, in ground attack and armed reconnaissance against the PAIGC insurgency. Two Sabres were lost. Matos records that on 17 August 1962 one overran the runway in heavy rain and overturned, its pilot escaping with minor injuries, and that on 31 May 1963 another was hit by fragments of its own bombs near Bedanda, lost its engine, and its pilot ejected and was recovered. The Air Force counts one loss in combat and one in an accident.

The Sabres came home for political, not military, reasons. They were American-supplied NATO equipment, and Washington objected to their use outside the Atlantic Alliance area; Matos describes a threat to withhold spare parts for other US-supplied types such as the F-84 and the P2V. The detachment was withdrawn in 1964, the Air Force dating its end to October. Its successor in Guinea, from 1966, was the Fiat G.91, obtained from West Germany and better suited to counter-insurgency work.

When the Sabre retired in 1980, Monte Real became an attack base. Portugal chose the LTV A-7P Corsair II in 1979, rebuilt from ex-US Navy airframes, and the deal was tied to the compensation package for American use of Lajes in the Azores. The Brazilian specialist site Velho General puts that element at USD 72 million and notes that many airframes arrived with 3,000 to 4,000 hours already flown. The first nine landed at Monte Real on 24 December 1981 to equip Esquadra 302.

A second squadron, Esquadra 304 “Magníficos”, was activated on 4 October 1984, the base’s 25th anniversary. The Air Force’s history gives 20 aircraft for the first batch and 30 more for the second. Wikipedia (finding aid) records that NATO formally accepted Monte Real as alliance infrastructure on 28 June 1984, earmarked for two attack squadrons and a future interceptor squadron — the role the F-16 would fill a decade later.

The Corsair was hard on its crews. Velho General counts 16 aircraft lost in 14 accidents, 13 of them in Portugal, beginning on 7 February 1985, and attributes them to human error (six), mechanical failure (four), bird strikes (three) and one undetermined cause; an engine-injector problem kept much of the fleet on the ground for about two months in 1988. The type flew its last Portuguese mission on 10 July 1999, after 18 years and about 64,000 flying hours.

Portugal’s F-16 force was built at Monte Real. Under the Peace Atlantis I programme the Air Force bought 20 F-16A/B Block 15 aircraft, 17 single-seaters and three two-seaters, with equipment, training in the United States and a US on-site support team at BA5. Esquadra 201 “Falcões”, the old Sabre squadron renumbered in the 1978 reorganisation, was reactivated on 4 October 1993, and the first four jets arrived in July 1994; an enthusiast history of the first decade dates their landing to 8 July.

In 1999 three aircraft deployed to Aviano in Italy and flew combat air patrols in NATO’s Operation Allied Force, the Air Force’s first combat missions since Africa. Two official accounts differ. The base history dates the deployment from January 1999 and gives 270 sorties and 1,130 flying hours; the Air Force’s F-16 anniversary site dates it from 24 March 1999, the start of the air campaign, and gives 281 sorties and 1,050 hours, with about 60 personnel and missions often longer than seven hours.

Peace Atlantis II, approved in 1998, added 25 ex-US aircraft from desert storage, for a planned fleet of 40 with five kept in reserve. Conversion to the Mid-Life Update standard, extending airframe life to 8,000 hours, began in the early 2000s, and the last conversion test flight was flown on 14 November 2013. Esquadra 301 “Jaguares”, which had flown the Alpha Jet from Beja, was reactivated on the F-16 at Monte Real on 25 November 2005.

Today Monte Real is the only home of Portugal’s fighters. The Air Force gives 30 F-16M, its name for the upgraded aircraft, operationally assigned to Esquadras 201 and 301, and about 600 military and civilian personnel at the base as of 2021. A pair of F-16Ms is held on permanent alert for national air defence. On 19 June 2025 the alert pair launched to escort an airliner that had declared a possible bomb threat over Portugal, handing it over to Spanish control when it left Portuguese airspace.

The squadrons first flew NATO air policing over the Baltic states in 2007. The President, Aníbal Cavaco Silva, visited on 17 October 2007, watched an alert exercise and met the roughly 170 personnel who had deployed with four F-16s. The Air Force’s anniversary history counts six further Baltic deployments, two over Iceland and four assurance-measure missions in Romania and Poland: a heavy load for a fleet of this size, and one reason the replacement debate matters.

The base has also served as an export workshop. On 30 September 2013 Portugal agreed to sell 12 MLU F-16s to Romania, with 13 engines overhauled and Romanian pilots, mission planners and mechanics trained; five more were agreed in 2019. The Air Force’s 62nd-anniversary note says 40 aircraft were converted to MLU, which is why that figure and today’s 30 both appear in official material. No allied flying unit is based at Monte Real permanently.

For years the Leiria region has wanted a civil terminal at Monte Real. In September 2019 the Prime Minister, António Costa, said in Leiria that opening the base to civil aviation was “justa e necessária” (fair and necessary). In March 2021 Leiria and Marinha Grande councils, the regional intermunicipal bodies, the Polytechnic and business associations pressed the government jointly, estimating the conversion at EUR 20 million and forecasting 400,000 to 500,000 passengers a year, with the Fátima sanctuary 20 km away.

Scepticism came from within the region. On 21 March 2021 the mayor of Coimbra, Manuel Machado, said the base would “muito dificilmente” (only with great difficulty) be opened to civil aviation, for reasons of strategy and defence, and that the Air Force would accept it only if suitable conditions were created elsewhere. In April 2023 the Independent Technical Commission on Lisbon’s new airport, which had looked at Monte Real in its first phase, left it off the final list of options.

On 28 January 2026 Storm Kristin struck the base with a gust of 178 km/h, which Observador reported as above the previous national record of 176.4 km/h set by Storm Leslie in 2018; the weather station was then destroyed. The Air Force acknowledged heavy material damage and damaged aircraft without giving a number, and said nobody was hurt and the air-defence mission remained operational. The press reported at least two, then at least four, F-16s hit.