{"id":48396,"date":"2022-08-27T23:03:11","date_gmt":"2022-08-27T21:03:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/?p=48396"},"modified":"2025-08-27T00:11:23","modified_gmt":"2025-08-26T22:11:23","slug":"the-old-amphibian-port-of-the-spanish-navy-in-el-carmoli-base-of-the-vca-36-hovercraft","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/2022\/08\/27\/the-old-amphibian-port-of-the-spanish-navy-in-el-carmoli-base-of-the-vca-36-hovercraft\/","title":{"rendered":"The old amphibian port of the Spanish Navy in El Carmol\u00ed, base of the VCA-36 hovercraft"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Writing this blog, I often come across very interesting and unknown information, and in the most unexpected way. This is what happened to me today.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p><rel><a href=\"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/2022\/08\/20\/a-tour-of-the-calamocha-airfield-a-former-ju-87-stukas-base-in-spain\/\">A tour of the Calamocha airfield, a former Ju-87 Stukas base in Spain<\/a><\/rel><br \/>\n<rel><a href=\"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/2022\/07\/08\/cornwall-an-airfield-with-old-harrier-fighters-and-other-derelict-aircraft\/\">Cornwall: an airfield with old Harrier fighters and other derelict aircraft<\/a><\/rel><\/p>\n<p>Searching for content on abandoned aerodromes, I found an interesting video of a British citizen who lives in the Spanish town of Mazarr\u00f3n (Murcia Region). This man has a Youtube channel, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/c\/ExpatinMazarr%C3%B3n\/featured\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Expat in Mazarr\u00f3n<\/a>, in which he recounts his experiences in Spain. A year ago he published<strong> a video about the old El Carmol\u00ed airfield<\/strong>, used by the Air Force of the Spanish Republic during the Spanish Civil War, and later used by the Spanishg Air Force, until -as happened with other aerodromes of that war- <strong>was converted into a civil aerodrome in 1943 and finally abandoned.<\/strong> Today it is in ruins:<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Abandoned Military Airfield Spain Aer\u00f3dromo Militar Abandonado Espa\u00f1a #abandonedplaces\" width=\"665\" height=\"374\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/vVW115-k0EI?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>If it were limited to that, the video itself would be interesting, but the big surprise came when at the end, this man starts talking about <strong>an old hovercraft base located nearby<\/strong>. Hovercraft? I have been a fan of military issues for many years and this is the first news I have of something like this in Spain. Searching for information <strong>I found three articles on this basis<\/strong> in the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.revistanaval.com\/archivo-2001-2003\/chaconsa.htm\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Revista Naval<\/a>, the newspaper <a href=\"https:\/\/www.laverdad.es\/murcia\/v\/20110919\/comarcas\/guarida-hovercraft-20110919.html\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">La Verdad<\/a> and the blog <a href=\"http:\/\/de-otro-tiempo.blogspot.com\/2013\/01\/zona-militar-el-carmoli.html\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">De Otro Timepo<\/a>.<\/p>\n<div class=\"foto_piedefoto\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/52315533085_cf9261f53c_o.jpg\" style=\"width:100%; height:auto;\" \/><\/div>\n<div class=\"piedefoto\">Images of the tests of the VCA-36 hovercraft of the Spanish Navy in 1989 (Photo: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.revistanaval.com\/archivo-2001-2003\/chaconsa.htm\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Revista Naval<\/a>).<\/div>\n<p><strong>In the mid-1970s, the company CHACONSA<\/strong>, specializing in machinery for the canning industry, <strong>began experimenting to manufacture hovercrafts<\/strong>. The Spanish Navy began to show interest in these projects and small-sized hovercraft began to be designed. <strong>Finally, in 1986 CACHONSA built a 25.17 meter long hovercraft for the Navy, the VCA-36<\/strong>, whose tests were carried out at the Sierra del Ret\u00edn Training Field (CASR), and also in <strong>the amphibian port El Carmol\u00ed, ceded by the Spanish Air Force to the Navy in December 1989<\/strong>, coinciding with the official delivery to the Navy of the VCA-36. You can see here a video of the tests carried out that year:<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"VCA36\" width=\"665\" height=\"499\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/7YrSyCNa_og?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Unfortunately, and although the hovercraft reached a good speed (65 knots, about 100 km\/h), <strong>the ship suffered considerable wear and the project ended up being discarded<\/strong> after an investment of 2,500 million pesetas and 12 years of research. Finally, <strong>in February 1994 the Ministry of Defense gave the order to scrap the VCA-36<\/strong> and return the El Carmol\u00ed amphibian port to the Air Force. Today it is abandoned and with the hangar in ruins.<\/p>\n<p>You can see below some interesting screenshots of the Expat in Mazarr\u00f3n video. We start with a view of<strong>the ruins of the old El Carmol\u00ed airfield:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/52315087986_d191db5c8a_b.jpg\" style=\"width:100%; height:auto; margin:10px 0 10px 0;\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>The interior of the old powder keg of the airfield, dug into the side of a volcano.<\/strong> The author of the video did not manage to reach the end since he did not have a flashlight at hand. I can't wait for the friends of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/c\/AventurasEntresierras\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\"> Aventuras Entresierras<\/a> to get there and do one of the great videos about it.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/52314293652_88d61da80f_b.jpg\" style=\"width:100%; height:auto; margin:10px 0 10px 0;\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>The runways at the El Carmol\u00ed amphibian port.<\/strong> I haven't found any information about it, but I wonder if this was once a seaplane base.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/52315533095_72470b53a1_b.jpg\" style=\"width:100%; height:auto; margin:10px 0 10px 0;\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>The hangar at the El Carmol\u00ed amphibian port<\/strong>, currently in ruins.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/52315516434_6520e9dde5_b.jpg\" style=\"width:100%; height:auto; margin:10px 0 10px 0;\" \/><\/p>\n<p>You can see under these lines <a href=\"https:\/\/goo.gl\/maps\/23u3xB56oaYPxdUbA\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">the location of the amphibian port on Google Maps<\/a>:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Writing this blog, I often come across very interesting and unknown information, and in the most unexpected way. This is what happened to me today.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[19536,16877],"tags":[17279,17277,17275,17272,17278,11875,10669,17276],"class_list":["post-48396","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-we-said-yesterday","category-ruins","tag-air-forces-of-the-spanish-republic","tag-amphibian-port-of-el-carmoli","tag-chaconsa","tag-el-carmoli","tag-el-carmoli-airfield","tag-spanish-air-force","tag-spanish-navy","tag-vca-36-hovercraft"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48396"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48396"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48396\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48396"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48396"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48396"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}