Drafted — not technically validated
Record revision 1 · Strike pilot training in the T-45 Goshawk on four 8,000 ft runways in South Texas.
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
- Country or territory
- United States
- Coordinates
- 27.5072° N, 97.8097° W [4]
- Elevation
- 50 ft (15 m) [2]
- Identifiers
- ICAO KNQI · FAA NQI
- Other names
- Naval Auxiliary Air Station Kingsville (former name, 4 Jul 1942 – 1968) [1]
- Opened
- 4 July 1942, as Naval Auxiliary Air Station Kingsville; a naval air station from 1968 [1]
- Theatre
- North America
Role and operators
- Status
- Active · Military
- Roles today
- Flight training
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
Training Air Wing Two: Training Squadrons 21 and 22 (VT-21 and VT-22) [1]
- Service
- United States, navy
- Basing
- Permanently based
- Aircraft
- T-45C Goshawk
- When
- as of Oct 2026
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.
| Runway | Length | Width | Surface |
|---|---|---|---|
| 13L/31R [2] | 8,000 ft (2,438 m) | 198 ft (60 m) | porous European mix |
| 13R/31L [2] | 8,000 ft (2,438 m) | 198 ft (60 m) | porous European mix |
| 17L/35R [2] | 8,000 ft (2,438 m) | 197 ft (60 m) | porous European mix |
| 17R/35L [2] | 8,000 ft (2,438 m) | 198 ft (60 m) | porous European mix |
- Arresting gear
- E-28 near both ends of all four runways [3]
- 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. NQI, on the field [2]
- ILS/DME runway 13R (I-NQI, channel 46X) [2]
- Other
- Optical landing system and wave-off lightsWave-off lights GlossaryAirfield and ATC: Flashing red lights on the optical landing system, worked by the landing signal officer, that tell the pilot to go around. at most runway ends, the equipment a runway needs for field carrier landing practiceFCLP GlossaryAirfield and ATC: Field carrier landing practice. Carrier-style approaches flown to a runway equipped with an optical landing system, worked by a landing signal officer. [2]
- Naval Auxiliary Landing Field Orange Grove, a satellite field run by the station [1]
Sim maps
Represented in: no map checked so far
No sim map has been checked against this airfield yet. That is not a claim that no map represents it.
Other maps in North America, not yet checked for this airfield, which may lie outside them: DCS: Nevada Test and Training Range.
Role today
Kingsville trains the Navy’s and Marine Corps’ strike pilots. [1] Training Air Wing Two flies the T-45 GoshawkT-45 Goshawk AircraftThe carrier-capable Hawk derivative in which Navy and Marine Corps strike pilots learn jets. there, and its students, along with tactical jet students from some NATO and allied nations, learn to fly a carrier-capable jet before they move on to fleet aircraft. [1] The wing was the first in the Navy to operate the T-45, which replaced both the T-2 Buckeye and the TA-4 Skyhawk in the strike pipeline, and it began taking the glass-cockpit T-45C in 2005. [1]
History
The station was commissioned on 4 July 1942 as an auxiliary field of NAS Corpus Christi and trained pilots for the Second World War. [1] It reopened as an auxiliary field in the Korean War, when its first jet training class began on 15 July, and became Naval Air Station Kingsville in 1968. [1] Besides flight training, the station runs its own air traffic control, bombing ranges, aerial targets and outlying fields, including Naval Auxiliary Landing Field Orange Grove. [1]
Sources
- Naval Air Station Kingsville. Wikipedia (secondary source). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naval_Air_Station_Kingsville (accessed 2026-10-27).
- Airport data: NQI (KNQI), Kingsville NAS. Federal Aviation Administration, Aeronautical Information Services, data effective 1–29 October 2026. https://nfdc.faa.gov/nfdcApps/services/ajv5/airportDisplay.jsp?airportId=NQI (accessed 2026-10-27).
- Airport Diagram, Kingsville NAS (KNQI). Federal Aviation Administration, digital Terminal Procedures Publication, cycle 2610, 1–29 October 2026. https://aeronav.faa.gov/d-tpp/2610/00918AD.PDF (accessed 2026-10-27).
- Airport data, KNQI. OurAirports open data (public domain, community-maintained). https://davidmegginson.github.io/ourairports-data/airports.csv (accessed 2026-10-28). Row for KNQI: latitude, longitude and identifiers.
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.