With the foundation of the Turkish State Airlines Enterprise , the predecessor of the Turkish Airlines, in 1933, regular domestic passenger flights started the same year between Ankara and Istanbul via a stopover in Eskişehir. The airport in Güvercinlik became the first airport of Ankara. In 1935, a training and a maintenance service center were established by the Turkish Aeronautical Association at the airport. The center, called Türkkuşu, carried out revision services to the DHY in two hangars until its relocation to the nearby airport in Etimesgut in 1945. On February 13, 1947, the first internationalpassenger flight of the DHY departed from the Güvercinlik Airport for Athens via Istanbul. Güvercinlik Airport served for the city of Ankara 22 years until 1955 when the civil flights were transferred to the newly completed Esenboğa Airport. Maintenance facilities were relocated to Istanbul Yeşilköy Airport the same year. The Army Aviation School, which was established in 1948 at the Turkish Army's Artillery School in Polatlı to train pilots and flight equipment technicians for reconnaissance aircraft and helicopters of the army and the gendarmerie, was deployed in 1958 to Güvercinlik Airport. Following the re-establishment of the aviation branch of the Turkish Navy in 1968, the first naval helicopter pilots were trained by the Army Aviation Command's flight school at the Güvercinlik Army Air Base.
Legal status
Currently, the air base is owned and operated by the Turkish Army. However, the military airport is open to general aviation for non-scheduled civil domestic flights only with permission according to a "Protocol on the Use of Military Airports by Civil Aviation" signed on July 22, 2002, between the Turkish General Staff and the Ministry of Transport. Civil aircraft, foreign flagged or Turkish, may make use of the maintenance facilities at the base with permission. Aircraft with any foreigner crew member, however, need to obtain a special permission to use the facilities. No staying overnight is allowed at the airport.
Units and equipment stationed
Following units and their equipment are stationed at the air base:
, Gen. Eşref Bitlis departed on February 17, 1993, from the Güvercinlik Air Base aboard a Beechcraft B200 for an official trip. The aircraft crashed shortly after take-off. Bitlis, his aide-de-camp, the pilots and a technician were killed. The pilot, who had VIP green card certification for excellence in flying, had switched the airplanes before the flight after having realized that the cockpit was not in order. The statement of the Chief of the General Staff, Gen. Doğan Güreş, that the accident on that snowy day was caused by atmospheric icing was denied by the crash investigators.
