Every war the Portuguese Air Force has fought
The movements the air force fought in Africa from 1961 to 1974 regarded the colonial war as a war of liberation, and their accounts of the air campaign differ from Portuguese ones. Where a consolidated sortie or loss figure exists in the official record it is given here; where accounts disagree, the range is shown and the disagreement named. Blank cells are blank because no figure could be verified, not because the fighting was small.
From the Western Front in 1917 to NATO air policing today.
| Conflict | Years | Against | Main aircraft | Sorties | Aircraft lost | |
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| First World WarPortuguese airmen on the Western FrontArmy Aeronautics (Aeronáutica Militar) and Naval Aviation | 1917–1918 | Germany | Allied fighters, F.B.A. flying boats | |||
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Portuguese pilots flew with Allied units in France; the navy flew anti-submarine patrols from Lisbon and, with French naval aviation, from São Jacinto. Portugal entered the war in 1916, and its flying was mostly done by individuals attached to Allied units rather than by Portuguese squadrons. Lieutenant Santos Leite had made the first Portuguese military aeroplane flight on 17 July 1916. Captain Óscar Monteiro Torres, flying on the Western Front, was shot down in November 1917 after, according to the Portuguese Air Force’s own summary as reported by Wikipedia, shooting down two German aircraft himself. The navy, which created its aviation service on 28 September 1917 and received two F.B.A. flying boats that winter, flew anti-submarine patrols; from April 1918 French naval aviators worked from São Jacinto near Aveiro, and American forces from the Azores. The war left Portugal with trained pilots and a taste for long-range flying that the navy showed in 1922 with the South Atlantic crossing. Outcome Portugal ended the war on the winning side; its air arms were still very small. Monteiro Torres’s victories and exact date of death, and the units he flew with, were not checked against a primary source.
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| Second World War neutrality and the AzoresAzores fighter detachmentsArmy Aeronautics and Naval Aviation | 1939–1945 | Gloster Gladiator, Curtiss 75A-4, Hawker Hurricaneand 1 more | ||||
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Defended neutral Portugal’s airspace and the Azores; from 1943 hosted British and then American aircraft at Lajes. Portugal was never at war between 1939 and 1945, but the Azores were strategically valuable to both sides, and in 1941 Lisbon reinforced them: two expeditionary fighter flights of 15 Gloster Gladiators each went out in June, and a third flight of 12 Curtiss 75 Mohawks in October; Rabo de Peixe and Lajes became air bases in 1942. In October 1943, under the Anglo-Portuguese alliance, British forces arrived at Lajes and laid steel planking to lengthen the runway, and more than 1,900 American aircraft passed through by the end of June 1944. Aircraft that landed in Portugal on delivery or combat flights were interned and often taken into service: Airacobras, P-38s, Liberators, a Wellington and Hudsons appear on the list of the period. Britain’s payment for cooperation came partly in fighters: Spitfires from 1942 and well over 100 Hurricanes from 1943. Outcome Portugal stayed neutral; Lajes became a lasting Allied base, and Portugal kept dozens of interned aircraft. Portugal was neutral, so this entry records wartime deployments, not combat. |
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| Portuguese Colonial War: Angola and MozambiqueGuerra do Ultramar; in Angola and Mozambique the wars of independencePortuguese Air Force (2nd and 3rd Air Regions) | 1961–1974 | MPLA, FNLA, UNITA and FRELIMO | F-84G, PV-2 Harpoon, B-26 Invaderand 7 more | |||
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Flew ground attack, reconnaissance, transport, paratroop assault and medical evacuation in support of the army against the independence movements. When the rising in northern Angola began in early 1961, the air force had a few PV-2 Harpoons and P2V Neptunes at Luanda; F-84G Thunderjets were moved to BA9 Luanda the same year and flew there, in one form or another, for years. The service organised Africa into air regions — the 2nd for Angola and São Tomé, the 3rd for Mozambique — with main bases at Luanda, Negage, Henrique de Carvalho, Beira and Lourenço Marques. guerracolonial.pt puts about 20,000 air force personnel and 150 aircraft in Africa in the 1960s. Seven B-26 Invaders were obtained covertly in 1965 through what the site calls Operation Pardal, and G.91s arrived from 1966. By 1972 the Angolan command had, according to Wikipedia, 30 helicopters, 44 light aircraft, 13 transports, six light bombers and four jet fighters: a counter-insurgency air force of Alouettes, Do 27s and T-6s rather than a jet force. Helicopter-borne paratroops were its sharpest tool. The movements the air force fought (MPLA, FNLA and UNITA in Angola, FRELIMO in Mozambique) regarded it as a war of liberation, and their accounts of air attacks on villages differ from Portuguese ones; they are not resolved here. Outcome The war ended with the Carnation Revolution of 25 April 1974; Mozambique became independent in June and Angola in November 1975. Sortie and loss totals for the air force were not found in an official source; theatre-by-theatre aircraft numbers vary by year and source. Opposing accounts of the air campaign’s effect on civilians were not checked.
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| Portuguese Colonial War: Guineathe Strela crisis of 1973Portuguese Air Force (Zona Aérea da Guiné e Cabo Verde) | 1961–1974 | PAIGC | F-86F, Fiat G.91, T-6and 3 more | |||
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Close air support, interdiction, transport and evacuation for the army against the PAIGC. Guinea was the smallest theatre and the hardest. In August 1961 eight F-86F Sabres went to Bissalanca and flew 577 sorties, until American objections to the use of NATO-supplied jets in Africa forced their withdrawal in October 1964. From 1966 the G.91s of Squadron 121 "Tigres" replaced them. The decisive change came in March 1973, when the PAIGC began using Soviet SA-7 Strela shoulder-launched missiles. On 25 March Lieutenant Miguel Pessoa’s G.91 was hit; he ejected, broke a leg and was rescued the next day. On 28 March Lieutenant-Colonel Almeida Brito was killed when his G.91 was destroyed in the air. On 6 April two Do 27s and a T-6 were lost during the evacuation of Guidage. The G.91 force fell from 11 to nine aircraft until two reinforcements arrived in July. Pilots began bombing from higher, entering at 10,000 feet and releasing at 6,000, and always flew in pairs to watch for launches. Operations continued, averaging about 130 hours a month, but the air superiority on which the army depended had gone. Outcome Portugal recognised Guinea-Bissau’s independence on 26 August 1974, after the revolution. Loss details come from a researched article by José Matos republished on a veterans’ blog, and Wikipedia; the exact aircraft counts per month were not checked against air force records.
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| Operation Allied ForceKosovo and SerbiaPortuguese Air Force | 1999 | Federal Republic of Yugoslavia | F-16A | 281 | 0 | |
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Flew combat air patrols and air surveillance for the NATO air campaign. Portugal’s first combat deployment with the F-16 came five years after the first jets arrived. When the NATO air campaign began on 24 March 1999, three F-16As were at Aviano in north-eastern Italy with about 60 pilots, mechanics and support staff. Their job was combat air patrol and air surveillance over Albania, the Adriatic, Hungary and the former Yugoslavia, protecting the strike packages rather than bombing. The air force’s own 30-year F-16 history counts 281 sorties and about 1,050 hours, with some missions lasting more than seven hours and needing several air-to-air refuellings. No weapons release is recorded. It was a small contribution, but it proved that the new fighter force, still flying the original Block 15 standard, could deploy and sustain NATO operations far from Monte Real. Outcome Yugoslavia accepted NATO’s terms in June 1999. The official account does not say whether Portuguese F-16s engaged any target; none is claimed here.
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| NATO air policing and assurance measuresBaltic, Iceland, Romania and PolandPortuguese Air Force | 2007– | F-16AM/BM | 0 | |||
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Guards allied airspace with F-16 detachments, usually four aircraft. The F-16 squadrons 201 and 301 first took over NATO’s Baltic Air Policing from Šiauliai in Lithuania on 1 November 2007, three years after the Baltic states joined the alliance. Wikipedia’s rotation list shows Portuguese detachments there in 2007, 2014 (six aircraft), 2016, 2018, 2021, 2023, 2024 and 2025, and at Ämari in Estonia from 31 March 2026, usually with four F-16AMs. The air force’s own 30-year history counts six Baltic deployments after the first, two to Iceland, and four each to Romania and Poland under NATO assurance measures after 2014. At home, Monte Real keeps F-16s on quick reaction alert. For a small fleet these rotations are a heavy load, and they are one of the reasons the replacement debate matters. Outcome Continuing; the 2026 rotation flew from Ämari, Estonia. Wikipedia’s list and the air force’s count differ slightly; later rotations are summarised rather than dated.
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Nothing matches that search.
Every figure, checked
- Força Aérea, 30 Anos F-16: Allied ForceThree F-16As at Aviano; 281 sorties; 1,050 hours.
- Força Aérea, 30 Anos F-16: NATO DefenceBaltic from 2007 plus six more; Iceland twice; Romania and Poland four each.
- Guerra Colonial: A Força Aérea e a Guerra ColonialAir regions and bases; 20,000 men and 150 aircraft; F-86 577 sorties; G.91; B-26; Noratlas; helicopters.
- Luís Graça & Camaradas da Guiné: O último ano do Fiat G-91, Parte I (José Matos)Strela losses of 25 and 28 March and 6 April 1973; tactics; G.91 strength.
Figures verified 2026-09-29. Back to the Portuguese Air Force.