1947–1958: a share of the Raj’s air force

The Royal Pakistan Air Force came into being with the country, in August 1947. Wikipedia’s account of the partition allotment lists 24 Tempest II fighter-bombers, two Halifax bombers, twelve Harvards and ten Tiger Moths among its first aircraft, and its first Air Officer Commanding was a British officer, Air Vice Marshal Allan Perry-Keene, from 15 August 1947. In the first war over Kashmir its eight C-47 Dakotas flew supplies to troops, including night drops at Skardu. The air force bought 87 Hawker Fury FB.60s from 1950, entered the jet age with 36 Supermarine Attackers in June 1951 and, under American aid from 1954, received 102 F-86F Sabres. It dropped ‘Royal’ when Pakistan became a republic on 23 March 1956, and Asghar Khan became its first Pakistani commander-in-chief on 23 July 1957. On 10 April 1959 PAF Sabres shot down an Indian Canberra near Rawalpindi, the service’s first air victory.

1965: Sabres, Starfighters and rival scoreboards

By September 1965 the PAF was small but modern by regional standards: German Wikipedia counts 12 F-104 Starfighters, about 120 F-86 Sabres and 20 B-57 bombers against an Indian Air Force of more than 700 aircraft. On 6 September it struck Pathankot, Adampur and Halwara; Wikipedia’s account says almost ten Indian aircraft were destroyed at Pathankot while the other two raids failed. On 7 September the PAF credited Squadron Leader M. M. Alam of No. 11 Squadron with five Hawker Hunters over Sargodha in under a minute; Indian records and the Pakistani air commodore Sajad Haider both question that tally, though Haider still called Alam the PAF’s undisputed ace. The war’s totals are the clearest example of rival scoreboards: Pakistan claimed 104 Indian aircraft for 19 of its own, India claimed 73 for 35, and the independent estimates Wikipedia summarises put losses at about 20 PAF and 60–75 IAF aircraft.

1971: two fronts, one surrender

The 1971 war was fought on two fronts and ended in defeat. On 3 December the PAF opened with pre-emptive strikes on Indian airfields as far as Agra, modelled on Israel’s 1967 opening, but Wikipedia’s account concludes it flew too few aircraft to do real damage. In the east, No. 14 Squadron’s Sabres at Dhaka were put out of action and its commander captured; Pakistan’s Eastern Command surrendered on 16 December and Bangladesh became independent. The figures are again contested: the PAF claims about 2,840 sorties and 71 Indian aircraft destroyed for 43 of its own, while independent estimates cited by Wikipedia put PAF losses at about 75 and Indian losses at 45–60. That August a Bengali instructor, Flight Lieutenant Matiur Rahman, had tried to fly a T-33 from Masroor to India; the jet crashed near Sujawal, and Pakistan honours the student pilot Rashid Minhas with its highest award while Bangladesh honours Rahman with its own.

1972–1999: Mirages, Chinese jets, F-16s and an embargo

After 1971 the PAF rebuilt with what it could buy. France supplied Mirage IIIEPs from 1967 and Mirage 5PAs from 1973; China supplied 260 F-6s between 1965 and 1980, later the A-5III and F-7P; and Pakistan built an industrial base at Kamra from 1971. PAF pilots on secondment flew for Jordan and Iraq in 1967 and for Syria in 1974, with claims that are Pakistani and only partly corroborated. The Soviet war in Afghanistan brought the F-16: 40 aircraft under Peace Gate from 1983, which between May 1986 and November 1988 shot down at least eight intruding Soviet and Afghan aircraft by the PAF’s count, including the Su-25 of the future Russian vice-president Alexander Rutskoy on 4 August 1988. Then in 1990 the United States embargoed 28 further F-16s over Pakistan’s nuclear programme, a decade-long break that pushed the PAF towards Chinese aircraft and the JF-17. In Kargil in 1999 it did not contest Indian air strikes.

2001–2019: insurgency at home, a dogfight over Kashmir

After 2001 the PAF fought mostly at home. It bombed militants in Swat in 2009 and in North Waziristan from 15 June 2014 in Operation Zarb-e-Azb, adapting a C-130 for surveillance, while its own bases became targets: a Taliban raid on Minhas on 16 August 2012 destroyed a Saab 2000 Erieye early-warning aircraft, and the attack on Camp Badaber on 18 September 2015 killed 23 airmen. The PAF inducted its first JF-17 squadron on 18 February 2010 and new F-16C/D Block 52s the same year. On 27 February 2019, the day after India’s strike near Balakot, the PAF struck targets in Indian-administered Kashmir; in the dogfight that followed an Indian MiG-21 was shot down and Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman captured, then released on 1 March. India said he had shot down an F-16; a US count reported by Foreign Policy found all Pakistani F-16s accounted for.

2020–2026: J-10CE, May 2025 and a western border at war

The PAF bought 25 Chinese J-10CEs in December 2021, with an option for 11 more, and inducted them at Minhas on 11 March 2022. It flew them in anger in May 2025. After Indian strikes on 7 May, Pakistan said its fighters shot down six Indian aircraft, including Rafales; India’s Chief of Defence Staff acknowledged losses on 31 May without giving numbers, and an unnamed US official told Reuters J-10s had downed at least two. On 10 May Indian missiles hit Nur Khan, Mushaf, Bholari and other bases; Pakistan said six airmen were killed. In August 2025 India’s air chief claimed five Pakistani fighters and a large aircraft shot down, a claim not acknowledged by Pakistan in the sources checked. Since October 2025 the PAF has struck the Pakistani Taliban and, from February 2026, Taliban forces inside Afghanistan, with casualty claims that differ widely. A first stealth fighter, the Chinese J-35, has been reported but not confirmed as delivered.