Zemunik lies inland from Zadar, and aviation here is older than the air base. English Wikipedia records that Zadar, then the Italian province of Zara, had scheduled flights by Ala Littoria as early as 1936. The military airfield that became today’s base, however, belongs to the Yugoslav era, when the Yugoslav People’s Army air force made Zemunik the flying school of its Military Aviation Academy.

The resident unit was the 105th Regiment. According to English Wikipedia, it was formed on 20 December 1946 at Kovin as a training regiment, moved through Mostar, Nikšić and Titograd, and was relocated to Zemunik from 2 February 1961. It was renamed the 105th Fighter-Bomber Aviation Regiment in 1969 but kept its school role. Its squadrons were the 249th on G-4 Super Galebs, the 251st on G-2 Galebs and the 333rd on Utva 75 piston trainers.

A Yugoslav cadet’s path ran Utva 75, Galeb, Super Galeb, then an operational type, and for most of them it began at Zemunik. The academy also flew Zlin 526 trainers here. When war came in 1991 the regiment received orders to withdraw to Udbina in the Serb-held Krajina, and it was disbanded at Golubovci in Montenegro in early April 1992. The exact date it left Zemunik is not given in the sources read, which are Wikipedia summaries of Serbian-language references.

The Croatian Air Force’s own history at Zemunik begins in the war. The 93rd Air Base dates its foundation to 1992: it marked its 22nd anniversary in March 2014 and the 93rd Wing its 34th on 20 March 2026. The barracks is named after Colonel Mirko Vukušić, co-founder and deputy commander of the Independent Air Platoon Osijek, who was killed on 2 December 1991 when his An-2 was shot down over Otok near Vinkovci.

For more than a year the airfield lay on the edge of the fighting around Zadar, with the forces of the self-proclaimed Republic of Serbian Krajina close by. Operation Maslenica, launched on 22 January 1993 and ended on 1 February, pushed them back from the approaches to Zadar; English Wikipedia, citing the ministry magazine Hrvatski vojnik, records that the Croatian army took Zemunik airport. Losses in the operation are disputed: Croatian sources give 114 Croatian dead, while Serb losses are given as 490 soldiers by Croatian sources and 348 soldiers and civilians by the Serbian NGO Veritas.

The gains were contested at once. Between 18 and 23 March 1993 ten Croatian defenders were killed at Škabrnja, near the airfield, holding the lines reached in Maslenica. Six of them belonged to the 93rd; the defence ministry says their fate was unknown for a long time before their bodies were exchanged and buried at Sukošan. The wing still honours them each March, alongside its anniversary.

Pilot training is run by the Croatian Air Force Training Centre “Rudolf Perešin”, named after the pilot who flew a MiG-21 out of the Yugoslav air force in 1991 and was killed in 1995. The centre marked its 27th anniversary in December 2019, which dates it to 1992. The flying is done by the 392nd Aircraft Squadron of the 93rd Wing, which the ministry says was founded on 6 November 1991.

Candidates first fly selection on the Zlin 242L, in air force service since 2007. In the summer of 2026 there were 24 of them, the most in 26 years; 19 had just finished secondary school, and five came in from civilian jobs. Those who pass move to the Pilatus PC-9M, on which, the squadron commander said in 2019, every generation of Croatian military aircraft pilots has completed its training.

The PC-9M arrived in 1996. English Wikipedia counts three second-hand aircraft that year and 17 new in 1997, of which six were later sold; the ministry listed 17 in service in 2019, so the fleet today is 14–17 depending on the source and date. On 11 July 2019 the fleet passed 60,000 hours with no serious incident. The squadron has also trained 38 pilots from Oman and flies in support of the Coast Guard.

The display team’s name, Wings of Storm, recalls Operation Storm of August 1995, and its debut was chosen to match: the team was presented to the Croatian public at Knin on 5 August 2005, the tenth anniversary of the operation. It has flown five aircraft since late 2005 and six since 25 March 2009, all PC-9Ms from the school’s own fleet, flown by instructors of the 392nd Squadron.

By April 2025, its 20th anniversary, the team had flown 261 official displays, 68 of them abroad in 15 countries. Its full programme then ran to 19 figures in 21 minutes. The anniversary was marked at Zemunik on 5 April 2025 with the defence minister, Ivan Anušić, who called the team the most recognisable part of the air force; the leader was Major Darko Belančić.

The team is also the air force’s best recruiting tool, and the base uses it that way. The 2014 open day at Zemunik, which drew about 3,000 people, closed with Krila Oluje. The 60,000th PC-9M hour, in July 2019, was flown by the squadron commander with a cadet in the other seat, in an aircraft painted for the 50,000-hour mark reached in 2014.

The armed forces began fighting fires from the air in 1993, carrying firefighters in Mi-8MTV-1 helicopters and dropping water with two Mi-8s rented from Russia. In 1994 two leased Canadair CL-215s flew with mixed Croatian and Canadian crews; two used CL-215s were bought from Italy in 1995. The 855th Firefighting Squadron marked its 32nd anniversary at Zemunik on 10 April 2026, which dates it to 1994.

The first CL-415 was bought in 1996, the second in 1999, the third in 2000 and the fourth in 2002, when the two CL-215s went back to the maker as part-exchange. The fifth and sixth followed in 2009 and 2010. Air Tractors came in 2000 (two AT-802A/F), 2007 (two AT-802A Fire Boss) and 2008 (three more), plus a two-seat AT-902 in 2014. The ministry counted six CL-415s and six Air Tractors in August 2025; how the Air Tractor fleet fell from eight bought to six is not explained in the sources read.

The squadron first flew abroad in 2007, and through the EU civil protection mechanism, rescEU, it had logged about 800 flight hours in ten countries by 2025, among them Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro and Albania. Two CL-415s fought fires in France in July and August 2026. At home the aircraft are tasked through the Operational Firefighting Command at Divulje; the wing commander stressed in 2025 that the squadron never deploys on its own initiative.

The 393rd Helicopter Squadron, which marked its 30th anniversary at Zemunik on 6 March 2026 and so dates to 1996, flies the Bell OH-58D Kiowa Warrior. Sixteen came from US Army stocks; trial flights began at Zemunik on 11 April 2017 under the squadron commander, Lieutenant Colonel Krešimir Ražov, who was commanding the whole air force by 2026. The Kiowas fire rockets and guns on the Slunj range.

On 11 December 2019 Zemunik became home to the Multinational Special Aviation Training Centre, which trains multi-role helicopter crews for special operations to NATO standards. Its founding nations were Croatia, Bulgaria, Slovenia and Hungary, and its opening demonstration used two Mi-171Sh and two OH-58D helicopters with Croatian special forces. Minister Damir Krstičević called it the first NATO international body with the potential to grow into a Centre of Excellence.

Allied forces use the base for exercises. In May 2021 the US 10th Army Air and Missile Defense Command brought a Patriot battery to the barracks for exercise Astral Knight 21, the first time the system had been deployed in Croatia; it protected the ports and forces of Immediate Response 21. A US MC-130 was shown at the base’s 2014 open day. The runways are shared with Zadar civil airport, whose taxiway crossed a public road until 7 April 2010.