Drafted — not technically validated
Record revision 1 · A Soviet fighter field from 1945, home of Georgia's 2nd Infantry Brigade from 2008, taken by Russian forces in August 2008.
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
- At Senaki in Samegrelo-Zemo Svaneti, western Georgia, beside the Georgian Defence Forces' Senaki military base [1] [3]
- Country or territory
- Georgia
- Coordinates
- 42.2403° N, 42.0455° E [3]
- Elevation
- 39 ft (12 m) [5]
- Identifiers
- GE-0010
- Other names
- None recorded
- Opened
- a Soviet fighter airfield by December 1945, when two fighter regiments were based there [1]
- Theatre
- The Caucasus
Role and operators
- Status
- Active · Military
- Roles today
- Forward staging and deployments
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
2nd Infantry Brigade [1]
- Service
- Georgia, army
- Basing
- Permanently based
- When
- since 30 Apr 2008
Earlier
56th Guards Fighter Aviation Regiment, disbanded in September 1960 [1]
- Service
- Soviet Union (until 1991), air force
- Basing
- Permanently based
- When
- Dec 1945 – Sep 1960
176th Fighter Aviation Regiment of the 283rd Fighter Aviation Division [1]
- Service
- Soviet Union (until 1991), air force
- Basing
- Permanently based
- When
- from Dec 1945, end not given
Runways and facilities
The sources do not date these figures. Facilities not listed here are not documented in the sources cited, which does not mean the airfield lacks them.
| Runway | Length | Width | Surface |
|---|---|---|---|
| Main runway, east–west [4]about 2,350 m, measured along the runway as OpenStreetMap maps it; no published runway data was found | 7,697 ft (2,346 m) | Not given | Not given |
| Gravel strip, north-east of the main runway [4]about 1,080 m, measured as above | 3,553 ft (1,083 m) | Not given | gravel |
- Arresting gear
- None documented in the sources cited
- Navaids
- None documented in the sources cited
Figure 1 — Airfield map of Senaki Air Base (to scale)
- Runway
- Taxiway
- Hangar or terminal
- Helipad
- Airfield boundary
Runways, taxiways, aprons and buildings inside the airfield boundary, true north up, drawn from OpenStreetMap data retrieved 2026-10-28. 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: Caucasus
DCS: Caucasus DCS World · Present day
Represented as “Senaki-Kolkhi” · checked 2026-10-28 [6]
- Runway 09/27 [6]
- Tower 132.0 MHz VHF and 261.0 MHz UHF [6]
- TACAN 31X (TSK), NDBs BI and B, and an ILS on runway 09, 108.9 MHz (ITS) [6]
Differences from the real airfield
Only the maps marked represented or confirmed absent have been checked. Any other map may or may not represent this airfield.
Role today
Senaki is the home of the Georgian Land Forces’ 2nd Infantry Brigade, whose base, built to NATO standards for 3,000 troops under a US military aid programme, opened on 30 April 2008 at a cost of about $17 million. [1] No published runway or elevation data was found for the airfield, so the figures on this page are measured from community mapping and satellite terrain data. [4] [5]
History
From December 1945 the Soviet 56th Guards and 176th Fighter Regiments of the 283rd Fighter Division were based at the airfield; the 56th was disbanded in September 1960. [1] In 1989 a MiG-29 of the 176th Regiment was flown from Senaki to Turkey and returned a day and a half later. [1]
Construction of the brigade base began in April 2005. [1] On 11 August 2008, during the Russo-Georgian War, Russian forces entered Senaki and took the military base; they seized 1,728 firearms there and later brought Georgian prisoners and US-supplied Humvees from Poti to it, before withdrawing from Senaki on 13 September 2008. [2] A Russian assessment held that Russian air losses would have been higher had Georgian forces not left part of their Buk-M1 air-defence systems near Senaki. [2]
The airfield
A main runway of about 2,350 m running east–west, with a shorter gravel strip to its north-east, as mapped in OpenStreetMap. [4]
Sources
- Сенаки (Senaki). Russian Wikipedia (secondary source, in Russian). https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Сенаки (accessed 2026-10-28). Town article, section Военная база (military base): the regiments from 1945, the 1989 MiG-29 flight to Turkey and the 2008 brigade base, citing Zarubezhnoye Voyennoye Obozreniye and N. N. Luzan.
- Russo-Georgian War. Wikipedia (secondary source). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Georgian_War (accessed 2026-10-28). The capture of the Senaki base on 11 August 2008 (citing The New York Times), equipment seized there, and the withdrawal on 13 September 2008.
- Airport data, GE-0010. OurAirports open data (public domain, community-maintained). https://davidmegginson.github.io/ourairports-data/airports.csv (accessed 2026-10-28). Row for GE-0010 Senaki Air Base: position only, with no elevation or runway rows.
- OpenStreetMap aerodrome way/26471061 (Senaki Military Base) and its runways. OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL 1.0). https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/26471061 (accessed 2026-10-28). Community-mapped. Runway lengths here are measured along the mapped runway lines, not published figures.
- SRTM 30 m terrain height at the airfield's OurAirports position. NASA Shuttle Radar Topography Mission data, via the OpenTopoData API. https://api.opentopodata.org/v1/srtm30m?locations=42.2403057,42.0454931 (accessed 2026-10-28). 12 m. A satellite terrain survey from 2000, not a surveyed aerodrome elevation; used because no published elevation was found.
- dcs-world-schema reference data: Caucasus airbases (Senaki-Kolkhi.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/Caucasus/Senaki-Kolkhi.json (accessed 2026-10-28). With its beacon and navaid files, as tabled on the DCS: Caucasus map page.
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.