1973–1974: what the Portuguese left behind

Guinea-Bissau won its independence from Portugal in 1974 after a guerrilla war led by the PAIGC, during which the Portuguese Air Force flew from Bissalanca, its Air Base No. 12 outside Bissau. When the Portuguese left in 1973–74, Wikipedia says, they left behind three T-6G trainers, nine C-47 Skytrains, two Dornier Do 27s and two Alouette III helicopters. The new air force, the Portuguese name of which is Força Aérea da Guiné-Bissau, was formed by officers returning from training in Cuba and the Soviet Union.

1974–1986: Soviet MiGs and French helicopters

The Soviet bloc supplied the first combat aircraft. Wikipedia counts eight or ten MiG-17F fighters and two MiG-15UTI trainers from East Germany and the Soviet Union, and in 1978 a Mil Mi-8T helicopter. The West contributed too: France gave a Reims-Cessna FTB.337 for coastal patrol and an Alouette II in 1978, and Angola donated a Dassault Falcon 20F, later sold to the United States. João Bernardo Vieira’s coup of 1980 began a pattern of military interventions in politics that has never really stopped.

1986–1998: MiG-21s, and a fleet in storage

In 1986 the Soviet Union delivered seven MiG-21bis fighters and MiG-21UM trainers. They did not make an air force. By 1991, according to Tom Cooper and Peter Weinert’s African MiGs as cited by Wikipedia, most of the MiG fleet was in "storage" inside hangars and deteriorating. Wikipedia also lists an Antonov An-24 among former types. No source checked records the MiGs flying in combat.

1998–2025: civil war, coups and a vanishing air arm

The civil war that broke out in June 1998 closed Bissau’s airport from 7 June 1998 until July 1999; Wikipedia says the air force took its present name after the war began, though it records no air operations. The coups and killings that followed — a bloodless coup in 2003, the assassination of the chief of staff Batista Tagme Na Waie in 2009, unrest in 2010, a failed coup in 2011, the coup of April 2012 under Gen. António Indjai and clashes in 2023 — were land affairs. The air force’s best-known chief, Ibraima Papa Camara, is recorded by Wikipedia as having been named a drug kingpin. By 2011 only an Alouette II and a couple of Alouette IIIs were left for liaison.

2025–2026: one Caravan under a military government

Today the sources disagree on what is left. Wikipedia, citing IISS The Military Balance 2023, says the air force has only a Cessna 208B; defenceWeb’s profile, updated in November 2025 but older in substance, still counts two unserviceable MiG-17s, two Alouette IIIs and a Gazelle among about 100 air force personnel, and calls the air force ineffective with nearly no serviceable aircraft. On 26 November 2025 officers led by Brig. Gen. Dinis Incanha seized power; Gen. Horta Inta-A Na Man became interim president, and elections have been decreed for 6 December 2026. No aircraft deliveries were reported in 2024–2026.

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אווירוספיאלי, מיקויאן, אנטונוב, דאסו תעופה, דורניר, דאגלס, מִיל, תעופה צפון אמריקה, ריימס תעופה