Stefanovikeio is a village in Magnesia, and its airfield is the centre of Greek army flying. Wikipedia lists three parts of Hellenic Army Aviation — the Army Aviation Directorate in the army general staff, the Army Aviation School and the 1st Army Aviation Brigade — and Greek City Times placed the 1st Brigade here in 2023. Its position in Thessaly puts it within reach of both the northern land border and the Aegean coast, and close to Volos, the port with which The Aviationist associated the Apache battalions in 2016.

What the base holds is better documented than when it was built. Greek City Times, reporting on the flood of September 2023, counted more than 100 helicopters of the brigade, and between 100 and 150 in all, naming Hueys, Apaches and Kiowas. The 70 OH-58D Kiowa Warriors received from the US Army in early 2018 were, according to Wikipedia citing a December 2019 report, stationed here first. No official history giving the date the field opened, or its runway, was found for this page, and the order of battle below brigade level is not published in a reachable source.

The Greek-US Mutual Defense Cooperation Agreement turned Stefanovikeio into one of a handful of Greek bases where US forces can expand. Signed in October 2019, it was ratified by the Greek parliament on 31 January 2020 by 175 votes to 33, and Greek City Times listed Stefanovikeio with Larissa and Alexandroupolis as the bases it covered. The revision announced by Secretary of State Antony Blinken in October 2021, Stars and Stripes reported, allowed expansion at Alexandroupoli, Larissa, Stefanovikio and Souda Bay and let the agreement stay in force indefinitely.

The money and the helicopters followed. Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt wrote in April 2021 that the US had already made infrastructure investments at Stefanovikeio. US Army aviation used the field: Stars and Stripes reported AH-64E Apaches of the 1st Battalion, 101st Combat Aviation Brigade flying in on 10 November 2020 and a change of command at Stefanovikeio the next day. The duration and size of US rotations since then were not confirmed for this page, and they are not given here.

In early September 2023 Storm Daniel brought catastrophic flooding to Thessaly, and the base was in its path. On 28 September Greek City Times, quoting military sources, reported that all the helicopters had been moved and re-stationed at other bases or were at the army’s 304 advanced base workshop, while admitting that water had reached up to five metres in some hangars. Helicopters under maintenance, the sources said, were protected because their mechanical parts had been removed and stored above the water. Images of submerged Hueys had already circulated online.

Militaire.gr, a Greek defence site, told a different story on 2 October 2023. It accused the government, the defence ministry and the general staff of pretending they had seen nothing, and claimed that Apaches of both the A and D models had stood in 5.5 metres of water for 15 days. No official damage assessment was found for this page, so the two accounts are given side by side. Either way, the flood exposed how much of the army’s helicopter fleet was concentrated on one low-lying field.

The Kiowa Warriors were the base’s biggest change of the past decade: 70 ex-US Army helicopters, about 60 in service and ten kept for spare parts according to Wikipedia, delivered as excess defence articles that Ambassador Pyatt described as a reasonable-cost increase in Greek capability. Wikipedia says the Greeks fitted them with a domestic active protection system.

The next change will happen elsewhere. The 35 UH-60M Black Hawks that replace the Hueys from 2027 are to be based at Sedes near Thessaloniki, according to Greek City Times, and the upgrade of 19 AH-64A+ Apaches reported in June 2026 was being carried out at the Army Aviation base at Alexandreia. What that means for Stefanovikeio’s own fleet once the Hueys go was not stated in any source reached.