Mustangs, Sabres and the first Black Eagles

Korean military display flying began on 1 October 1953, weeks after the armistice, when four F-51 Mustangs flew the ROKAF’s first aerobatic display. A T-33A show flight followed in 1956 and the Blue Sabre team on four F-86s from 1959 to 1966. The name Black Eagles arrived in 1967 with a team of Northrop F-5A Freedom Fighters, which flew until 1978, when it was disbanded so its aircraft and pilots could return to defence readiness. For sixteen years Korea had no permanent team.

The A-37 revival

The team was re-formed on 12 December 1994 as the second flight of the 238th Fighter Squadron, flying six Cessna A-37B Dragonflies, and on 1 April 1999 it became the separate 239th Aerobatic Flight Squadron. The A-37 period was marked by two fatal accidents and ended after the Seoul Air Show in October 2007, when the subsonic attack jets were retired from the team and it stood down while a replacement was prepared.

The T-50B and the 53rd Air Demonstration Group

That replacement was the T-50B, an aerobatic version of the KAI T-50 Golden Eagle supersonic trainer fitted with a smoke system. The team returned in August 2009 and performed on 23 September 2009 for the ROKAF’s 60th anniversary. On 1 April 2013 it was raised to the 53rd Air Demonstration Group at Wonju in Gangwon Province. It flies eight aircraft in black, yellow and white, and the T-50B gives the display a speed range that propeller and subsonic teams cannot match.

Losses in three decades

The Black Eagles have lost three pilots. On 8 May 1998 a mid-air collision during training killed the team leader. On 5 May 2006 an A-37B crashed during a Children’s Day display at Suwon Air Base, killing its pilot. On 15 November 2012 a T-50B crashed in mountains near Hoengseong, killing the pilot; the cause was reported as human error during maintenance. On 6 February 2018 a T-50B veered off the runway on take-off at the Singapore Airshow and overturned; the pilot escaped with minor injuries and the ROKAF attributed it to his failure to follow the procedure for an abnormal situation.

Black Eagles abroad

Overseas tours are central to the team’s role. In July 2012 it won the King Hussein Memorial Sword and the As The Crow Flies trophy at the Royal International Air Tattoo. In 2022 it returned to the UK with nine T-50Bs for RIAT, Farnborough and Southport, also displaying in Poland and, in August, becoming the first foreign military team to fly over the Giza pyramids, in support of FA-50 sales to Egypt. In February 2026 nine T-50Bs flew 11,300 km to the World Defense Show in Riyadh, refuelling at Naha in Japan on the way.