1961–1976: a squadron of Dakotas and a French air base

Chad’s air arm was formed in 1961, the year after independence, as the Escadrille Nationale Tchadienne (ENT); the national army dates its own creation to 27 May 1961 under President François Tombalbaye. It was a transport squadron rather than an air force. By 1969 it had five Douglas C-47s and three Max Holste MH.1521 Broussard liaison aircraft, and it flew alongside a much larger French presence: France had kept an air base at Fort-Lamy, today’s N’Djamena, since 1939 as Base aérienne 172. In the mid-1970s six ex-French AD-4N Skyraiders arrived, with more C-47s and Douglas C-54s, and three Reims-Cessna FTB337s followed in 1977. The Skyraider article on Wikipedia notes that the type flew in Chad first with the French Armée de l’Air and later with ‘a nominally independent Chadian Air Force staffed by French mercenaries’ — a fair description of what the ENT was in its first two decades.

1977–1979: Skyraiders over the north, SA-7s and collapse

The ENT’s real war began in mid-1977, when FROLINAT rebels backed by Libya pushed into the north. Its Skyraiders flew their first attack sorties from Faya-Largeau on 1 July 1977, attacking from as low as 60 metres and releasing all their weapons in a single pass; nearly all were damaged by ground fire, and Zouar was overrun on 6 July. The rebels then received Soviet SA-7 shoulder-launched missiles. On 29 January 1978 a C-47 flying very low was shot down and its crew killed; the next day a C-54 was hit by two SA-7s and force-landed, its crew surviving. A Skyraider and its pilot were lost to an SA-7 on 16 April 1978, as France launched Opération Tacaud. The missile threat ended ENT operations around Faya, and when the government disintegrated in 1979 and French personnel left, the squadron stopped flying and was, in Wikipedia’s words, de facto disbanded.

1984–1994: rebuilt around American Hercules for the Toyota War

For five years Chad had no functioning air arm, through the worst of the civil war and the Libyan occupation of the north. It was reconstituted in 1984 as the Armée de l’Air Tchadienne, and its first aircraft were four Lockheed C-130 Hercules donated by the United States. That shaped its part in the Toyota War of 1986–1987, in which Hissène Habré’s FANT drove Libyan forces out of most of northern Chad on pickups armed with MILAN missiles. France’s Opération Épervier, begun on the night of 13–14 February 1986, bombed the Libyan base at Ouadi Doum on 16 February and kept the Libyan air force largely grounded. The Chadian air contribution was logistic: the Hercules carried troops and supplies north, and one was abandoned after catching fire near Yebbibou in late 1987. The famous figure of about 32 Libyan aircraft destroyed at Maaten al-Sarra on 5 September 1987 is Chad’s claim, from a ground raid.

2005–2010: oil money, contractors and gunships

Oil revenue, about 500 million dollars a year from the mid-2000s according to Tom Cooper and Adrien Fontanellaz, rebuilt the force. They describe how President Idriss Déby and Habib Boukharouba, a former French air force pilot of Algerian origin, did it through Griffon Aerospace, which brought in some 50 French, Mexican and Algerian instructors and technicians. Ukrainian Mi-24V gunships and Mi-17s were bought, and Griffon fitted a Pilatus PC-9 trainer, TT-QAG, with hardpoints for Pakistani-made bombs. Photographed armed in early 2008, it caused a scandal in Switzerland: Wikipedia records that its alleged use against dissidents was considered a breach of Swiss export controls. The gunships proved effective against rebel columns in the Battle of N’Djamena on 2–4 February 2008, though a government helicopter’s missile also hit the main market. Six Su-25s arrived from Ukraine between 2008 and 2010, and in May 2009 Sudan accused Chadian aircraft of raids inside Darfur, which Chad called preventive action.

2013–2021: Su-25s against Boko Haram, a storm and a president killed

Four more Su-25s came from Ukraine in 2013, two Alenia C-27J Spartans in 2013 and 2014, and the first of three MiG-29s in 2014. When Chad intervened against Boko Haram in early 2015 — its troops entered Gamboru in Nigeria on 4 February after preliminary air strikes — its Su-25s flew in Cameroon and Nigeria. The United States added two Cessna 208 surveillance aircraft under an AFRICOM counter-terrorism programme. Then a storm struck N’Djamena on 1 July 2017; photographs analysed by Military Africa showed three Fennec helicopters, a PC-12, a MiG-29 and two Su-25s damaged, and a US Air Force maintenance squadron from Holloman arrived on 7 January 2018 to build shelters. Hinds and Su-25s were later overhauled in Georgia, and a Mi-24/35 crashed between N’Djamena and Faya in September 2019. On 20 April 2021 President Idriss Déby died of wounds suffered fighting FACT rebels in the north, and his son Mahamat took power.

2022–2026: Turkish and Chinese drones, the French leave and partly return

Since 2022 Chad has turned to Turkey and, apparently, China. Turkish Aerospace announced an order for three Hürkuş in July 2022; three armed Hürkuş-Cs and two Anka drones were in Chad by mid-2023 and formally handed over on 9 August 2023, and an Aksungur was flying from the Adji Kosséi air base in N’Djamena by April 2024. In August 2026 satellite imagery reportedly showed at least four Chinese CH-4 combat drones at Abéché. After Chad ended its defence agreement with France on 28 November 2024, French fighters left on 10 December, Abéché was handed back on 10 January 2025 and the Adji Kosséi base from 31 January 2025. By April 2026 French personnel had quietly returned for training and intelligence support, without permanent bases. The force remains small — about 350 people in 2024 — and no official Chadian inventory was found, so every fleet figure here is a third-party estimate.

现有船队和订单

皮拉图斯, 土耳其航空航天 (TAI / TUSAŞ), 米尔, 宇航, 阿莱尼亚, 安东诺夫, CASC, 塞斯纳, 欧洲直升机公司, 洛克希德, 米高扬, 苏霍伊

前舰队

道格拉斯, CASA, 马克斯·霍尔斯特, 兰斯航空, SIAI-Marchetti