Elementary Flying School
THE ABANDONED MILITARY SITE IN BELGIUM
‘Elementary Flying School’ was the flight school of the Belgian army. Behind the hangars is the former military airbase, rebuilt after the war and closed in 1996. It is mostly in a state of decay and disuse.
Goetsenhoven Airfield was one of the first airfields for Belgian military aviation. They built it in 1922 as a grass airfield. It was the home of Group II flying the ‘Ansaldo A.300’ and ‘Havilland DH.9.’.
On 10 May 1940, the Luftwaffe bombed the airfield at the start of the Second World War. The resident units had to move to other airfields. Aircraft that survived went to France. The Luftwaffe only used the airfield as a diversion airfield. Near the end of the war, the USAAF bombed the airfield again.
After the war, they totally rebuilt Goetsenhoven. They removed a metal runway and returned it to a grass airfield. It took until 1950 to reopen the air base. The ‘Elementary Flying School’ moved in from Schaffen Air Base. In 1969, they bought new aircraft for the school. This was a major upgrade for the air base. They built two asphalt runways instead of the grass ones they had used before.
In 1996 the EVS moved to Air Base Bevekom, ending the military presence at Goetsenhoven. The place was taken over by the civil aviation that uses the control tower, airstrip, and the hangars. The old school buildings and barracks were left abandoned. I visited the ‘Elementary Flying School’ in 2006 and 2015.
