OVERSWEEPThe Interactive Flight Reference

Creech Air Force Base

Drafted — not technically validated

Record revision 1 · The US Air Force's home of the MQ-9 Reaper and RQ-170, at Indian Springs on the edge of the Nevada ranges.

A real-world airfield as described in public sources, and how sim maps represent it. Units, facilities and names change; each is dated where the sources allow, and the charts are not for navigation. Use current official publications for flight planning.

Location and identity

Location
1 mile north of Indian Springs, Clark County, Nevada [1] [2]
Country or territory
United States
Coordinates
36.5863° N, 115.6774° W [2]
Elevation
3,134 ft (955 m) [2]
Identifiers
ICAO KINS · FAA INS
Other names
  • Indian Springs Army Airfield (former name, 1942 – Jan 1947) [1]
  • Indian Springs Air Force Base (former name, Aug 1951 – 1 Apr 1961) [1]
  • Indian Springs Air Force Auxiliary Field (former name, 1 Apr 1961 – 20 Jun 2005) [1]
Opened
built from March 1942 as Indian Springs Airport, a tent camp that became a divert field and gunnery training base by February 1943; named Creech Air Force Base on 20 June 2005 [1]

Role and operators

Status
Active · Military
Roles today
Reconnaissance and surveillance · Flight test · Weapons and tactics school
Operators
  • US Air Force, Air Combat Command; the FAA lists the owner as Nellis AFB · United States, air force · current; start date not given [1] [2]

Units

Permanently based units belong to the airfield; rotational and temporarily deployed units are there for a period or an operation. Dates are when the sources place each unit there; "as of" is when a source described it as current.

Current

  • 432nd Wing / 432nd Air Expeditionary Wing: attack squadrons flying the MQ-9A Reaper and reconnaissance squadrons flying the RQ-170A Sentinel [1]

    Service
    United States, air force
    Basing
    Permanently based
    Aircraft
    MQ-9A, RQ-170A
    When
    as of Oct 2026

  • 556th Test and Evaluation Squadron (53rd Wing) and 26th Weapons Squadron (US Air Force Weapons School) [1]

    Service
    United States, air force
    Basing
    Permanently based
    Aircraft
    MQ-9A
    When
    as of Oct 2026

  • 78th and 91st Attack Squadrons, 926th Wing (Air Force Reserve) [1]

    Service
    United States, air force
    Basing
    Permanently based
    Aircraft
    MQ-9A
    When
    as of Oct 2026

  • Joint Unmanned Aircraft Systems Center of Excellence [1]

    Service
    United States, joint or defence-wide
    Basing
    Permanently based
    When
    since Oct 2005

Earlier

  • No. 39 Squadron, Royal Air Force [1] [4]

    Service
    United Kingdom, air force
    Basing
    Permanently based
    Aircraft
    MQ-9A
    When
    Mar 2007 – Jul 2022

Runways and facilities

From data effective Oct 2026. Facilities not listed here are not documented in the sources cited, which does not mean the airfield lacks them.

RunwayLengthWidthSurface
08/26 [2]4-light PAPIs at both ends9,002 ft (2,744 m)150 ft (46 m)asphalt
13/31 [2]a daytime VFR runway for emergency use only; runway 31 has a displaced threshold of 462 ft5,476 ft (1,669 m)100 ft (30 m)asphalt
Arresting gear
  • A BAK-14 cable, kept down and raised by the tower on request [2]
Navaids
  • TACANTACAN GlossaryAirfield and ATC: Tactical air navigation. An ultra-high frequency electronic rho-theta air navigation aid which provides suitably equipped aircraft a continuous indication of bearing and distance to the TACAN station. INS, 0.3 nm from the field [2]
Other
  • Indian Springs Tower and Ground share 118.3 MHz; ATIS on 290.45 MHz [2]
  • Private use only; prior permission is required, and the field is closed at weekends and on holidays except for Nellis local flying or mission-essential traffic [2]

Figure 1 — Airfield map of Creech Air Force Base (to scale)

08261331N500 m
  • Runway
  • Taxiway
  • Apron
  • Hangar or terminal
  • Airfield boundary

Runways, taxiways, aprons and buildings inside the airfield boundary, true north up, drawn from OpenStreetMap data retrieved 2026-11-01. Widths come from the map data or, where it gives none, a typical 45 m runway and 18 m taxiway. Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors, available under the ODbL 1.0. Community-mapped, not an official aerodrome chart, and not for navigation.

Sim maps

Represented in: DCS: Nevada Test and Training Range

DCS: Nevada Test and Training Range DCS World · Present day

Represented as “Creech” · checked 2026-11-01 [3]

  • Runways 08/26 and 13/31 [3]
  • Tower 118.3 MHz VHF and 360.6 MHz UHF, callsign Indian Springs [3]
  • TACAN INS on channel 87X, and ILS approaches to runways 08 (ICRR, 108.7 MHz) and 13 (ICRS, 108.5 MHz) [3]

Only the maps marked represented or confirmed absent have been checked. Any other map may or may not represent this airfield.

Role today

Creech Air Force Base is the US Air Force’s main home for remotely piloted aircraft. The 432nd Wing flies the MQ-9A Reaper and the RQ-170A Sentinel from here, alongside a test squadron, a Weapons School squadron and two Air Force Reserve squadrons. [1] Crews here fly missions across the world, and the base is also the Thunderbirds’ aerial training site and one of two emergency divert airfields for the Nevada Test and Training RangeNorth America TheatreUS home ranges, led by the Nevada Test and Training Range: Red Flag, nuclear tests, Area 51 and the F-117’s secret years.. [1]

History

Construction of Indian Springs Airport began in March 1942, and by February 1943 it was a divert field and an air-to-air gunnery training base, flying B-17s and T-6s. [1] It closed in January 1947, reopened in January 1948, and became Indian Springs Air Force Base in August 1951. [1] Through the 1950s it supported the Atomic Energy Commission’s nuclear tests at the Nevada Proving Grounds, with more than 1,500 people there during test series. [1]

The base passed to NellisNellis Air Force Base AirfieldThe Air Force's centre for advanced combat training: home of the Weapons School, Red Flag and the Thunderbirds, outside Las Vegas. on 1 April 1961 as Indian Springs Air Force Auxiliary Field, and through the 1970s and 1980s its main job was range maintenance. [1] In 1982 four Thunderbirds T-38s were lost here when they flew into the ground in the diamond formation. [1] The Royal Air Force formed its first unmanned aircraft flight here in January 2005; it became part of No. 39 Squadron in March 2007, which flew Reapers from Creech until it disbanded in July 2022. [1] [4]

It was renamed Creech Air Force Base on 20 June 2005, after General Wilbur L. Creech, commander of Tactical Air Command from 1978 to 1984. [1] The first Reaper squadronSquadron GlossaryJoint terms: 1. An organization consisting of two or more divisions of ships, or two or more divisions (Navy) or flights of aircraft. 2. The basic administrative aviation unit of the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, and Air Force. 3…, the 42nd Attack Squadron, formed here in November 2006, and the 432nd Wing took over the base on 1 May 2007. [1]

The airfield

The main runway, 08/26, is 9,002 ft of asphalt with PAPIs at both ends; the shorter 13/31 is a daytime VFR runway kept for emergencies. [2] The FAA warns of mountainous terrain on all sides, unlit hills to 4,000 ft within two miles, and extensive unmanned aircraft operations nearby. [2]

Sources

  1. Creech Air Force Base. Wikipedia (secondary source). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creech_Air_Force_Base (accessed 2026-11-01). History from Indian Springs Airport to Creech AFB, and the based units list.
  2. Airport data: INS (KINS), Creech AFB. Federal Aviation Administration, Aeronautical Information Services, data effective 29 October – 26 November 2026. https://nfdc.faa.gov/nfdcApps/services/ajv5/airportDisplay.jsp?airportId=INS (accessed 2026-11-01).
  3. dcs-world-schema reference data: Nevada airbases (Creech.json). dcs-world-schema, open-source data extracted by running DCS World 2.9.30.28536. https://github.com/YoloWingPixie/dcs-world-schema/blob/c3091e6c08fb8167e26145d0e33c10e4140c6fe7/dcs-world-reference/latest/airbases/Nevada/Creech.json (accessed 2026-11-01). With its beacon files, as tabled on the DCS: Nevada map page.
  4. No. 39 Squadron RAF. Wikipedia (secondary source). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No._39_Squadron_RAF (accessed 2026-11-02). Disbandment in July 2022, when its Reaper ground control system returned from Creech to RAF Waddington.

Wikipedia articles are secondary sources and can change; they are cited with the date they were read. FAA airport data and diagrams are official but are reissued every 28 or 56 days; each is cited with the edition read. pydcs mirrors the DCS terrain data at the commit linked.