Naval Air Station Fallon, located in Churchill County in north-central Nevada, has operated as a Navy aviation training facility since World War II. The installation’s remote desert location and extensive restricted airspace made it the primary venue for tactical air warfare training, including the Naval Strike and Air Warfare Center (NSAWC) and the Strike Fighter Tactics Instructor Program — popularly known as TOPGUN after its relocation from NAS Miramar to Fallon in 1996. The installation’s shore facilities, built across multiple construction eras from the 1940s forward, incorporated asbestos-containing materials standard in Navy shore construction of those periods.

Aviation Maintenance and Shore Facility Asbestos

NAS Fallon’s aviation maintenance facilities — hangars, maintenance shops, and flight line support buildings — were constructed and expanded during the postwar period. Aviation maintenance facilities at Navy air stations of this era typically incorporated:

  • Hangar structural steel with asbestos fireproofing on structural framing and asbestos-containing roofing systems
  • Steam heating and utility systems serving maintenance facilities and barracks with asbestos pipe insulation and boiler lagging
  • Maintenance shops used by aviation personnel with asbestos gaskets, packing, and high-temperature insulation in aircraft support equipment
  • Administrative and support buildings built with asbestos-containing floor tile, ceiling materials, and pipe insulation

TOPGUN and Tactical Training Infrastructure

The relocation of the TOPGUN program from NAS Miramar to NAS Fallon in the 1990s brought significant infrastructure expansion to the Fallon installation. Shore duty personnel and instructor staff at the training program were present in buildings that may have included legacy asbestos-containing materials from the installation’s earlier construction eras, particularly in maintenance and administrative buildings predating the TOPGUN expansion.

VA Claims for NAS Fallon Veterans

VA presumptive service connection under 38 CFR § 3.309(d) covers asbestos exposure at shore installations including NAS Fallon. Veterans who served in aviation maintenance, training, or administrative billets at NAS Fallon during the asbestos era and have since been diagnosed with mesothelioma, asbestosis, or asbestos-related lung cancer should document their assignment through DD-214 records listing Naval Air Station Fallon or Fallon, NV.