Madrid–Cuatro Vientos Airport (LECU), which translates to “Four Winds” in English, is the oldest airport in Spain. The airport is one of three civilian airports in Madrid together with Madrid–Torrejón Airport (TOJ) and the one most people are familiar with, Adolfo Suárez Madrid–Barajas Airport (MAD).
Founded in 1911, Madrid–Cuatro Vientos Airport (LECU) is located five miles southwest of the city center in the neighborhood of the same name. Together with the Tablada Air Barracks in Seville, Cuatro Vientos is regarded as being the cradle of Spanish aviation.
Madrid–Cuatro Vientos Airport was a military base
Originally constructed as a base for the Spanish Air Force, Cuatro Vientos became a joint military/civilian airport in the 1970s. Since then, the civilian side of the airport has almost exclusively been used by flying clubs and privately owned small planes. The military side of the airport is now used solely by the Spanish Policía Nacional and the Guardia Civil as a base for their aircraft and helicopters.
It is also home to the Museum of Aeronautics and Astronautics, an air museum dedicated to the historical heritage of the Spanish Air Force. Occupying a surface of over 720,000 square feet, the air museum has seven hangars and around 200 aircraft on display.
Madrid–Cuatro Vientos Airport has a single paved runway
Madrid–Cuatro Vientos Airport only has one runway: 09/27 and is 4,921 feet long, making it only suitable for propeller aircraft, helicopters, and small business jets. A legacy left from when it was solely a military airport is a parallel second runway on natural terrain located on the north side.
While the non-paved runway appears on airport maps and charts and is regularly maintained, airport operating company AENA does not approve it for civilian use. The civilian side of Madrid–Cuatro Vientos Airport is only open during daylight hours and used once a month by the Infante de Orleans Foundation, a group of aviation enthusiasts who put on an air show using vintage aircraft.
Some curious facts about Madrid–Cuatro Vientos Airport
Madrid–Cuatro Vientos Airport has three control towers. The first, which happens to be the oldest control tower in Europe, is now a museum. The second tower on what was being used for the airport terminal is currently closed and decommissioned. The third tower constructed in 2005 is the control tower now being used to guide aircraft and is set apart from all the airport’s other buildings.
In the summer of 1919, British aviator James Arthur Peters made a historic non-stop flight from Hendon Aerodrome in London to Cuatro Vientos. Flying a single-engine Alliance P.1, Peters and his navigator carried a letter for the Queen of Spain from the owner of the Alliance Aeroplane Company. So impressed with the Madrid facilities on his return to England, Peters named his Hertfordshire house “Cuatro Vientos.”
Now surrounded on all sides by residential buildings, there is no possibility of expanding the airport or opening it up to larger aircraft.
Have you ever been to Madrid–Cuatro Vientos Airport? If so, please tell us about it in the comments.
