Air Force
On May 25, 1925 a Junkers F.13 entered service as the first aircraft in Mongolian civil and military aviation. By 1935 Soviet aircraft were based in the country. In May 1937 the air force was renamed the Mongolian People's Republic Air Corps. During 1939-1945 the Soviets delivered Polikarpov I-15s, Polikarpov I-16s, Yak-9s and Ilyushin Il-2s. By 1966 the first SA-2 SAM units entered service, and the air force was renamed the Air Force of the Mongolian People's Republic. The MiG-15UTI and MiG-17 the first combat jet aircraft in the Mongolian inventory, entered service in 1970 and by the mid-1970s was joined by MiG-21s, Mi-8s and Ka-26s.
After the end of the Cold War and the advent of the Democratic Revolution, the air force was effectively grounded due to a lack of fuel and spare parts. However, the government has been trying to revive the air force since 2001. The current Armed Forces maintains an Air Forces Defense Command (Агаарын довтолгооноос хамгаалах цэргийн командлал), under the command of the General Staff. The country has the goal of developing a full air force in the future.
In 2011, the Ministry of Defense announced that they would buy MiG-29s from Russia by the end of the year. In February 2012 the Ministry of Defense received an Airbus A310-300 from MIAT Mongolian Airlines, the state-owned national air carrier, that was to be used mainly for transportation of peacekeepers.
Read more about this topic: Mongolian Armed Forces
Famous quotes related to air force:
“I remember when I was first assigned to jets. I said to the colonel, ‘Colonel, I joined this man’s air force to fly an airplane. But nobody’s gonna hitch me to no Roman candle.’”
—Kurt Neumann (1906–1958)