Leonor de Borbón has just overcome the last of the challenges of her military training. The Princess of Asturias has completed the Basic Parachuting Course at the Méndez Parada Military Parachuting School, located at the Alcantarilla Air Base (Murcia Region), as a complement to the military training she is undertaking at the General Air and Space Academy (AGA) in San Javier, as reported this Tuesday by the Royal Household. The heir to the Crown has thus become the first member of the Royal Family to receive a parachuting course, as neither Felipe VI nor Juan Carlos I did so during their military training.
The Princess of Asturias has received elementary parachuting techniques for automatic opening jumps, just like other members of the various parachuting units of the Air and Space Army, the Army, the Navy, and the Civil Guard. A training plan that lasted two weeks (it was carried out last May) and included a physical test, a simulation of high-altitude jumps from the instruction field tower — that is, preparation for then getting on a plane and jumping from 1,300 feet (400 meters) — and even lessons on how to land on the ground.
As part of the course training, the eldest daughter of Kings Felipe VI and Letizia has even prepared to perform night jumps, as seen in the images distributed today by La Zarzuela Palace, in which she appears with a red helmet and jumpsuit, listening to the various instructions, adjusting her parachute, ready inside the plane to jump and launching herself outside.
Upon concluding this training period, she received the Parachutist Hunter diploma and badge along with the rest of her fifty or so classmates from the AGA. With this, the future queen has completed the third of her military training courses and is preparing to begin her Political Science degree next September at the Getafe campus of the Carlos III Public University in Madrid.
Last Saturday, May 30, during the Armed Forces Day parade held in the city of Vigo, Felipe VI praised “the effort and brilliance” of his daughter’s military career, who for the first time attended the event as a cadet ensign of the Air and Space Army. The King highlighted that she had overcome this challenge “with great effort and brilliance. As a father, I won’t be the one to say it; as supreme commander [of the Armed Forces], we’ll see.” The Princess of Asturias will complete her three-year training on July 10 at the General Air Academy (San Javier, Murcia), where she will receive the Grand Cross of Aeronautical Merit (she already has the military and naval ones) with a white distinction.
Leonor de Borbón, destined to be the future Head of State and Captain General of the Armed Forces, has completed the third of the three academic courses into which her military training was structured, leading her to successively pass through different academies. First, in August 2023, it was the General Military Academy (AGM) in Zaragoza, where the Kings’ eldest daughter joined a promotion of gentlemen and lady cadets, future officers of the Army, the Civil Guard, and the Common Corps of the Armed Forces.
A year later, in August 2024, she began her training at the Naval Military School (ENM). There she entered as a midshipman until January 2025, when she embarked on the training ship Juan Sebastián Elcano, aboard which she visited seven countries. Finally, on September 1, 2025, she exchanged sea for air and began the last leg of her military training at the General Air and Space Academy (AGA). In early May, images of Princess Leonor’s first flight in an F-5 combat aircraft were released.
The Princess of Asturias will receive tomorrow, June 3, the Gold Medal of the Region of Murcia and of the Regional Assembly, the highest distinctions of the community and the autonomous Parliament, and the two highest recognitions from the San Javier City Council: the Gold Medal of the Villa and the title of Adoptive Daughter of the municipality. In July 2024, she already received the Grand Cross of Military Merit after her time at the General Army Academy in Zaragoza. And in July 2025, the Grand Cross of Naval Merit at the Naval Military School of Marín, in Galicia.