In the early 1950s, the construction of the new "Engels-2" airport with a concrete runway with a length of 3 km and a width of 100m was begun, and therefore, by September 1954 the Engels school was moved to the city of Tambov.
The base was to have received the first production Tu-160 in 1987 but it went to Priluki, whose units had Tupolev Tu-22M experience.