1959: an air force born after the Jebel Akhdar campaign

Oman’s military aviation began in someone else’s war. Between 1954 and January 1959 the Jebel Akhdar war was fought largely from the air by the British: Wikipedia, drawing on campaign histories, counts 2,080 sorties, 1,750 tons of bombs and 3,843 rockets fired by RAF Venoms from Sharjah and Shackletons against the rebel strongholds on the mountain, with one RAF pilot killed. Within weeks of the end of that campaign, in March 1959, the Sultan of Oman’s Air Force (SOAF) was formed with British personnel and aircraft. Its first seven pilots gathered at RAF Manby in Lincolnshire under Squadron Leader Barry Atkinson, and its first equipment was two Scottish Aviation Pioneers followed by Percival Provost T52s, according to the English Wikipedia article on the service. It was a liaison and light-attack outfit, not yet an air force in the full sense, and its officers were seconded or contract Britons for years.

1965–1976: the Dhofar war, Strikemasters and Mirbat

The Dhofar rebellion, which began on 9 June 1965 in the southern province, made SOAF a fighting service. Oman ordered 12 BAC Strikemaster Mk 82s in 1967; they arrived in the summer of 1969 and, according to Wikipedia citing Watkins (2023), flew their first strikes in October 1969, with 13 Mk 82As following later. Eight Shorts Skyvans kept the hill posts supplied and Agusta-Bell 205 helicopters, arriving from 1971 according to Small Wars Journal, made troop rotation possible. The best-known day came at Mirbat on 19 July 1972: under a low monsoon cloud base, Strikemasters strafed the PFLOAG attackers with guns and light rockets, one of them damaged badly enough to turn back, while helicopters brought in SAS reinforcements. Wikipedia says three Strikemasters were shot down over the course of the war, one allegedly by an SA-7. The insurgents claimed far more: Orient XXI reports a PFLO claim of 25 aircraft and helicopters downed in 1975 alone, a claim not corroborated in the sources checked.

Hunters from Jordan and Jaguars from Britain

In the middle of the war SOAF acquired real fighters. Wikipedia records an expansion in 1974 that brought Britten-Norman Defenders, BAC One-Elevens, Vickers VC10s and Hawker Hunters; the Royal Jordanian Air Force’s own history says that in 1975 Jordan retired its Hunters and transferred them to Oman, and Small Wars Journal and the Dhofar article put the gift at 31 aircraft (the service article says 32). The Hunters arrived just as the rebels deployed SA-7 missiles in 1975, and Wikipedia notes they proved less vulnerable than the slower Strikemasters. Oman also had Iranian help: Orient XXI and Wikipedia describe an Imperial Iranian task force with its own helicopters, and Phantoms deployed by the end of 1973. The rebellion was declared defeated in January 1976. A year later, in March 1977, the first SEPECAT Jaguars arrived; 12 were ordered in 1974 and another 12 in the mid-1980s, plus two ex-RAF airframes, and they flew from Thumrait with Nos 8 and 20 Squadrons until the last four were retired on 6 August 2014.

1990–2018: a new name, Hawks, F-16s and Typhoons

SOAF became the Royal Air Force of Oman in 1990. The same year, on 30 July 1990, Oman ordered four Hawk Mk 103 trainers, delivered between December 1993 and January 1994 alongside 12 single-seat Hawk Mk 203 light fighters, according to Wikipedia. The jump to a modern combat jet came with the F-16: f-16.net records an agreement in May 2002 for eight F-16C and four F-16D Block 50s (Peace A’sama A’safiya I), the first accepted on 19 July 2005, and a second batch of ten C and two D models announced on 3 August 2010, ordered on 14 December 2011 and delivered in 2014. In December 2012 Oman then signed for 12 Eurofighter Typhoons and eight Hawk advanced jet trainers, a deal the BBC (as cited by Wikipedia) valued at 2.5 billion pounds. The Aviationist reported the ninth and tenth Typhoons passing through Malta on their way to Adam on 5 February 2018, and the deliveries were completed that year. Twenty NH90 helicopters, ordered in July 2004, replaced the old Agusta-Bells from 2010.

Neutral by design: the Gulf War, Yemen and mediation

What the Royal Air Force of Oman has not done is as telling as what it has. Oman contributed about 6,300 personnel to the 1991 coalition against Iraq, according to Wikipedia, but no Omani air combat role in Desert Storm is documented in the sources checked. In March 2015 Oman was the one Gulf Cooperation Council state that stayed out of the Saudi-led intervention in Yemen; instead it put forward a seven-point peace plan on 22 April 2015 and later hosted Saudi-Houthi talks under UN auspices, according to Wikipedia’s article on the intervention. Muscat also hosted United States-Iran negotiations before the 2026 war; on 28 February 2026 Foreign Minister Badr Al Busaidi said that "active and serious negotiations" had been undermined by the US-Israeli strikes, as quoted in Wikipedia’s compilation of the 2026 strikes on Oman. The result is an air force that trains hard, sends its jets abroad for exercises and search-and-rescue at home, but has not flown an offensive combat mission since Dhofar in any source found for this page.

2026: drones over Duqm and Salalah, and what is still not known

The war that began on 28 February 2026 between the United States and Israel on one side and Iran on the other reached Oman without Oman joining it. From 1 March drones hit the port of Duqm and a tanker off Khasab; on 3 March two drones were intercepted over Dhofar and another struck a fuel tank at Duqm; on 11 March, Muscat Daily reported, Omani authorities intercepted drones north of Duqm while fuel tanks burned at Salalah. Muscat Daily attributes each interception only to "a security source" and does not say which service made it; Wikipedia’s compilation credits the Royal Air Force of Oman and counts at least 19 drones intercepted, a figure not confirmed by an Omani official statement in the sources checked. Iran’s general staff denied ordering strikes on Omani territory, calling Oman a friend and neighbour. In 2026 the force’s fleet was what FlightGlobal had counted a year earlier, with nothing on order; how much its Typhoons, F-16s and ground-based air defences actually did that spring has not been published.