Cognac-Châteaubernard (BA 709) Air Base — Cognac/Châteaubernard, France

Better known to the French military as Base aérienne 709, CNG occupies flat farmland outside a town whose name is inseparable from brandy production, home to distilling houses like Hennessy, Martell, and Rémy Martin that have shipped Cognac worldwide for centuries. The base has long served as a training ground for French Air and Space Force pilots, hosting early flight-screening and instruction programs that put new aviators through their first cockpit hours before advanced training elsewhere. During the Second World War, occupying German forces used the airfield, and it returned to French military control after liberation, later playing a role in NATO-era air defense arrangements. A limited civil aviation component allows general aviation and occasional commercial traffic to share the base's substantial runway infrastructure alongside its primary military mission.