Komatsu is a city located in Ishikawa Prefecture, Japan, and bordered by the Sea of Japan to the east. The city has an airport that is used for commercial flights but also hosts a military air base. The air base is home to three squadrons, equipped with F-15 Eagle fighter aircraft. Due to the heavy flying activity, Komatsu Air Base can easily be described as Eagle Heaven.

Komatsu Air Base
Originally, Komatsu Airport was a base of the Imperial Japanese Navy during World War II. Construction of the first runways was completed in 1944. The United States Armed Forces took over the base at the end of the war in 1945 and used it as a radar facility. The first commercial flights out of Komatsu started in 1955. In 1958 the base was handed over to the Japanese Government and it became a jet fighter base in 1960. More civilian flight services developed through the years and the airport’s first international service was flown in 1973 to Hong Kong.
Nowadays, the military squadrons at Komatsu fall under Air Defence Command of the Japanse Air Self-Defense Force. 303 and 306 Hikotai operate the F-15J and F-15DJ (the twin seater version of the F-15J) and a few T-4s. 303 Hikotai has also a few brand new F-35s in its inventory.

Aggressor Eagles
A special unit at Komatsu is Hiko Kyodogun, the Aggressor Group. This unit trains fighter pilots in advanced air combat tactics. The Aggressor unit mainly uses the F-15DJ for its traning purposes due to security reasons, but also operates a few single seat Eagles. The aircraft are painted in very colorful schemes, that really stand out to the regular gray color scheme of the JASDF F-15s. During training the pilots simulate the tactics of possible enemies, like China, North Korea and Russia.