Romorantin - Pruniers Air Detachment

Romorantin - Pruniers Air Detachment (DA 273) is a French Air Force military facility, located southwest of Romorantin-Lanthenay, in the Loir-et-Cher department of central France. Pruniers airfield was part of a huge depot built for the United States Army Air Service during World War I as an aircraft engineering facility. After the Armistice, the airfield stayed operational, with a French Air Force depot built in 1934. The airfield is slightly widened during World War II by the German Luftwaffe, but not much used. It returned to French control in September 1944, still as a depot. DA 273 is primarily a logistics base for repairing aircraft by maintaining warehouses of spare parts. It is also a center for printing and issuing the technical documentation for the French Air Force. It also operates a small grass airfield as center for glider pilot training. It has a worldwide reputation as the gliding training site for the air Air Force for national and international competitions. The base employs approximately 650; half of the workforce are civilian personnel. The first aviation use of Romorantin was in 1911, when a professor at the Collège Maurice Genevoix in Romorantin set up a "Society pour le Développement de l'Aéronautique". On 3 June 1911, the new society organized the demonstration of a Blériot Aéronautique monoplane which was flown for eight and one-half minutes from the military training and firing range of "La Butte". After the flight, the crowd went wild and the Mayor offered champagne. After a second flight, this aviation event remained deeply marked in local annals. According to the elected officials at the time, there were more than 10,000 people in attendance at the demonstration. On 31 March 1912, the city council received a letter from the Ligue National Aéronautique (an aviation lobbying association whose president was Georges Clemenceau) suggesting that some land be provided for an airfield.