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People's Liberation Army Air Force |
This airfield, located on the coast near no major population center, is almost certainly a military airbase. Luqiao is reportedly one of six airbases operated by the PLA Navy Flight Unit, subordinated to the East Sea Fleet headquartered at Ningbo.
Based on CORONA imagery from about thirty years ago, this airbase consists of a hard-surface runway that is close to 8,000 feet long. Like several other Chinese airbases, this base has at least 30 revetted hardstands in two groupings -- half of them are in the northeastern part and the other half are in the southwestern part of the base. Each revetment may contain up to three combat aircraft as seen at other PLAAF bases. Accordingly, in this configuration, the base may support up to 90 aircraft. The revetments connect to the main runway via at least four taxiways. At each end of the runway, there appear to be enough alert hardstands for about 20 aircraft or 40 total aircraft, counting both ends. There are no obvious weapons storage areas in the CORONA imagery. There appears to be a surface-to-air-missile defense site near the base.
| 1970 - CORONA | 2000 - IKONOS |
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