Santa Cruz Air Force Base
Santa Cruz Air Force Base – ALA12 is a base of the Brazilian Air Force, located in the district of Santa Cruz in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. History The base was originally called Bartolomeu de Gusmão Airport and it was constructed to handle the operations with the rigid airships Graf Zeppelin and Hindenburg. Between 1931 and 1937, Deutsche Luft Hansa had regular flights between Germany and Brazil, with Rio de Janeiro as final stop. For this reason Luftschiffbau Zeppelin decided to construct a dedi…