Commissioned in 1961, NAS Lemoore, as seen from an aircraft flying above, looks significant and stands out from the farmlands of Central California, due to its large construction. It is the newest and largest master jet base of the U.S. Navy. It has two offset parallel runways 4,600 feet (1,400m) apart. Aircraft parking and maintenance hangars are aligned between the 13,500-foot (4,100m) runways. Separated from the hangars by underpasses beneath taxiways A and C, the remainder of the air operations area is located directly to the southeast.
In July 1998, NAS Lemoore was selected as the West Coast site for the Navy's newest strike-fighter aircraft, the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet. This decision brought approximately 92 additional aircraft, 1,850 additional active duty personnel and 3,000 family members to NAS Lemoore, and several associated facility additions or improvements.
The Navy also brought four new fleet squadrons to NAS Lemoore from 2001 to 2004. Additional military staffing was required at the Aircraft Intermediate Maintenance Department, Strike Fighter Weapons School Pacific, and Center for Naval Aviation Technical Training Unit Lemoore (CNATTU Lemoore) to support this effort. Originally, the officer in charge of construction for building the base was Commander Dennis K. Culp CEC/USN, the first Naval officer in Lemoore.
On 31 March 2016, two civilians were killed when the Jeep Grand Cherokee they were driving collided with a parked F/A-18 on the base's tarmac. The vehicle had been pursued by the California Highway Patrol (CHP) and entered the base without being stopped by base security. A CHP helicopter monitoring the pursuit recorded the incident using FLIR, capturing radio communications in which base tower personnel asked whether the vehicle had entered the base and a CHP dispatcher confirmed that it had. The vehicle then proceeded onto a darkened section of the tarmac without its lights on before colliding with the parked aircraft. The aircraft's left tail surface cut into the passenger compartment of the vehicle.
Current operations
The various naval aircraft stationed at NAS Lemoore, 2024
With the transfer of NAS Miramar to the United States Marine Corps, NAS Lemoore now hosts the Navy's entire west coast fighter/attack capability. NAS Lemoore was built "from the ground up" as a Master Jet Base, and has several operational advantages, and relatively few constraints, as a result.
Strike Fighter Wing Pacific with its supporting facilities is home ported here. The primary aircraft based at NAS Lemoore are the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet since 1999 and the F-35C Lightning II since 2017, operating from 16 Fleet [operational] Squadrons and 2 Fleet Replacement Squadrons.
Lemoore is home to aircraft assigned to the following Carrier Air Wings:
