Air Force
The primary missions of the air arm is to defend Zambia's borders and protect its airspace. In addition, it provides various forms of air support to other government departments. Thus, it also flies reconnaissance, trooping and transport missions for the police and airlifts medical supplies and personnel to inaccessible areas. Finally, the organisation provides emergency transport whenever needed. One of the more recent relief operations mounted by the Air Arm occurred in early 2007, when it came to the aid of flood victims in the North-Western Province.Few details are available on force deployment, but combat elements are understood to be located at Lusaka (K-8), Mbala (MB-326) and Mumbwa (MiG-21), with the small fleet of transport aircraft and utility helicopters also reportedly stationed at Lusaka.
Operational aircraft
The Zambian air force has a wide variety of Aircraft:
- Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-21MF - 12 upgraded in Israel to MiG-21-2000
- Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-19S - 12
- Antonov An-26 - 4
- de Havilland DHC-5D Buffalo - 4
- Harbin Y-12 - 4
- Yakovlev Yak-40 - 2
- Aermacchi SF.260
- Aermacchi MB-326 - 23
- Nanchang PT-6
- Hongdu K-8 Karakorum - 6
- Xian MA60 - 2
- Mil Mi-17
- Bell UH-1H Iroquois - 6 (recently purchased in South Africa)
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