1961–1979: a token air arm and the Bokassa years

Wikipedia dates the Central African Republic’s air arm to 1961, the year after independence from France, and gives its French name as Force aérienne centrafricaine. Beyond that date the sources checked say almost nothing about its early equipment, and nothing reliable about the air arm under Jean-Bédel Bokassa, who seized power in the Saint-Sylvestre coup of 1 January 1966, proclaimed the Central African Empire on 4 December 1976 and was crowned on 4 December 1977. What the record does show is how much the country depended on French aviation: for the coronation, Wikipedia says, France’s defence minister lent Bokassa’s government seventeen aircraft. In September 1979 French forces removed him: in Operations Caban and Barracuda two French military transports carried more than 300 troops from N’Djamena, and a commando unit secured Bangui M’Poko airport with little resistance. No role for a Central African air force in any of this is recorded.

1979–2012: bought helicopters and an old Hercules

For the next three decades the air arm remained tiny and dependent on what governments could afford. Wikipedia’s armed forces article says that, according to some sources, President François Bozizé used money from the Bakouma mining concession to buy two old Mi-8 helicopters from Ukraine and a 1950s-built Lockheed C-130 Hercules from the United States. Two Mi-24V or Mi-35 gunships followed from Ukraine in 2011, according to Wikipedia’s air force article. Throughout this period French Mirage F1s regularly patrolled troubled regions of the country and took part in direct confrontations, Wikipedia says, until they were withdrawn and retired in 2014; the Central African air arm itself had no combat aircraft. The sources checked do not give dates, serials or fates for the Ukrainian helicopters.

2012–2017: civil war and an air force on paper

The civil war that began in 2012 effectively finished what was left. According to Wikipedia, citing the United Nations, most of the army’s heavy weapons and equipment were destroyed or captured by Séléka fighters during the 2012–2014 fighting, and in its immediate aftermath the army had only 70 rifles. Wikipedia describes the air force as almost inoperable, grounded by lack of funding apart from one AS 350 Ecureuil helicopter delivered in 1987. A UN arms embargo was in force from 2013. In 2017 the air force became a branch of the Ground Force. In late 2019 Serbia offered two new J-22 Orao attack aircraft, Wikipedia says, but whether the offer was ever approved is unknown, and no source checked records a delivery. No air role for the Central African air arm after 2014 is recorded in the sources checked.

2020–2023: Russian helicopters and L-39s

Russia changed the picture. Wikipedia says Russia has sent regular servicemen and the Wagner Group to the Central African Republic since 2018, for training and to fill security vacuums. Military Africa reported that in December 2020 a Russian An-124 delivered two Mi-8AMTSh helicopters, and that in May 2021 another An-124 delivered at least one Mi-8MT and one Mi-24V "to the armed forces of the Central African Republic"; the same report says Russia kept the affair quiet and links the helicopters to Russia’s 344th Army Aviation Centre. From 23 August 2022, Military Africa reported, Russia supplied L-39 Albatros jet trainers, six in all by May 2023; Wikipedia counts six to eight delivered by early January 2023 and its armed forces article ten. Who flies and maintains these aircraft has not been documented in the sources checked.

2024–2026: embargo lifted, little else known

On 26 November 2022 an unidentified aircraft bombed a base at Bossangoa used by government troops and Wagner personnel; the government said the aircraft headed north across the border and that the act "will not go unpunished", Military Africa reported, while that outlet’s suggestion that Chad was responsible remains unconfirmed and no Chadian response was found. The UN Security Council lifted the remaining arms embargo on the government with Resolution 2745 at the end of July 2024, defenceWeb reported, while keeping a Panel of Experts. Since then no confirmed air force order, delivery, accident or operation has been found in the sources checked. Wikipedia’s armed forces table also lists eight Su-25 attack jets and six to ten AL-60 utility aircraft; no other source supports either entry, so they are not counted here.

Current fleet and orders

Mil, Aérospatiale, Aero Vodochody

Former fleet

Lockheed