Air Force C-130s, for example, recently began flying into the airport in Irbil, which is about 30 miles south of Bashur.

“The equipment is needed further south,” Lt. Col. Mike Marra, commander of the 86th Air Mobility Squadron said Tuesday. “That’s the primary reason. The population centers are further south, and that’s where we want to be.”

The Air Force has yet to officially decide when it plans to close Bashur or where it intends to shift its assets. While the volume of traffic varies, the 86th Contingency Response Group, based at Ramstein Air Base, Germany, has been handling 12 or more flights a day over the past three weeks, many of them at night.

Airfield cargo operations will end “in a matter of weeks,” Marra said. “It’ll take a little time to get an assessment for where we want to go.”

In the north, the Air Force wants to expand or develop airlift operations at Irbil and Kirkuk. Other locations also are very possible. A week ago, a three-member assessment team from the Air Force’s Civil Engineer Support Agency, based at Tyndall Air Force Base, Fla., evaluated the airfield at Irbil, said Maj. Anthony Davit, who led the survey.

Such teams typically conduct a battery of tests, including checking the soil and concrete. They also validate airfield dimensions.

The Irbil facility has two runways, though one is unfinished. The functioning runway, which is now handling some C-130s, measures about 9,000 feet. When the Iraqi air force was active, the base hosted fighter aircraft.

Irbil is “actually a better location” than Bashur, Davit said a few days ago. It has an extensive “road network running out of there.”

An Air Force ground crew is now in place in Irbil. What this all means for the Air Force expeditionary group at Bashur, which numbers more than 200 people, isn’t entirely clear. For the past couple of days, however, there has been a growing sense among the airmen at Bashur that their time on base may be winding down, especially since the war with Iraq is nearing the end.

“The shooting war is over,” Marra said. “We don’t want to hurt any people or damage any equipment because we are in a hurry” to get to a new location.

Since March 27, when the first cargo aircraft landed, the airmen deployed to Bashur have handled more than 250 flights, Marra said. The total weight lifted, as of Monday night, was 14.3 million pounds. That includes tanks, armored personnel carriers, supplies and equipment.

In addition, about 3,000 troops have caught their first glimpse of Iraq from the flight line at Bashur. Those have been primarily Special Forces personnel and troops from the 173rd Airborne Brigade, Vicenza, Italy, and 1st Infantry Division units from Germany.

Bashur airfield was built to support the region’s oil and agricultural industries, Davit said. His team’s survey of the landing strip was favorable, but there were some cautionary notes, primarily the condition of the runway on the west end. “This place was designed for small aircraft, not C-17s and C-130s,” Davit said.

In recent days, Air Force officials have noticed deterioration of the concrete on the west end. The heavy cargo planes, coupled with water erosion, are viewed as the main culprits.

Marra said they have asked pilots to now land farther along the strip, shortening the landing zone from 7,300 feet to 4,700 feet, which is still within acceptable standards.

“It just takes away an extra margin of safety,” Marra said.

The regional airfield, he noted, has exceeded everybody’s expectations. “The field really did its job,” Marra said. “We actually brought in above and beyond what we had anticipated.”