Albanian Air Force

Albanian Air Force Forca Ajrore Shqiptare
Coat of arms of the Albanian Air Force
Lineup	April 24, 1951
Country	Albania
Armed forces	Forcat e Armatosura të Shqipërisë
Type	Armed forces ( air forces )
management
Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces	President of the Republic of Albania
Military Commander of the Armed Forces	Chief of Staff Brigadier General Bardhyl Kollçaku
Air Force Commander	Brigadier General Vladimir Avdiaj
insignia
Aircraft cockade

The Albanian Air Force ( Albanian  Forca Ajrore Shqiptare ) is an independent branch of the Albanian Armed Forces .

history

The first attempts to build an air force in Albania go back to 1914. But the project was stopped when the First World War broke out . It wasn't until the late 1930s that budding pilots were sent abroad for training.

After the Second World War , in 1951, the Albanian Air Force was officially established. Air surveillance had already been set up in 1947 . The combat squadron, founded in 1951 and equipped with Jak-18 , was stationed in Tirana at the Lapraka airfield . From 1955 the air force flew with jets for the first time ; the MiG-15 were stationed in Kuçova . In 1957 a transport department was established. In 1962 the new Air Force Regiment was stationed at Tirana Airport. In 1974 the Gjadër military airfield was opened, so that a base was also available in northern Albania.

Albanian F-6 ( MiG-19 )

In 1961 diplomatic relations between the People's Republic of Albania under Enver Hoxha and the Soviet Union were broken off , which also affected the deliveries of Soviet weapons technology to the Albanian air force. As a result, the only option left was to obtain aircraft from the People's Republic of China, with which an alliance had been concluded in the same year. In the following decades, mainly Chinese licensed Soviet aircraft came to Albania. The fighter pilots were equipped with F-6, the Chinese license build of the MiG-19 , and from 1970 additionally by F-7 , a Chinese further development of the MiG-21 . The fighter-bomber formations consisted of F-2 (MiG-15) and F-4 ( MiG-17 ). After Albania fell out with China in 1978 and the country slipped more and more into foreign policy isolation, even this side no longer supplied any modern equipment. When the communist government was overthrown in 1990, the Albanian army's aircraft fleet was hopelessly outdated. At the end of 1991 there were still about 90 fighter and fighter-bombers, mainly F-4 and F-6 and about twelve F-7, in active service. In addition, there were around six Li-2s , three Il-14Ms from Albtransport , around ten Chinese An-2s (Y-5) and eight Z-5 ( Mi-4 ) helicopters for transport tasks . About six MiG-15UTI (FT-2) were available for fighter pilot training. The basic training was carried out with Jak-11 and Jak-18 (CJ-5) over thirty .

The worst accident for the Albanian Air Force occurred on November 22, 1989, when two Z-5 helicopters collided with mountains in bad weather near the village of Vuno and the Llogara Pass . They were in the process of transporting injured persons in a bus accident near Kudhës ( Himara ) to Tirana. All 21 occupants lost their lives in the crash, and two more in the bus accident. At the beginning of the 1990s, there were several crashes: The last one of a jet plane took place on September 16, 2004, when an armed military jet, a Chinese license build of the MiG-19, crashed on the edge of the airport grounds immediately after taking off in Tirana. The pilot was killed. On July 16, 2006, a Bell 222 crashed into the Adriatic Sea , transporting the injured Gramoz Pashko to Tirana for treatment. All six inmates died. In April 2016, a Eurocopter 145 crashed into Lake Skadar , killing two pilots.

organization

The Albanian Air Force now has the Kuçova air base , the Farka air base helicopter landing pad and various facilities for technical and logistical support for the troops.

tasks

In addition to monitoring the airspace, the Air Force also performs search and rescue missions .

Since Albania does not currently have its own jet aircraft , the security of the state airspace is taken over by Greek and Italian fighter pilots.

equipment

The aircraft of the Albanian Air Force currently consists exclusively of helicopters . The aircraft that had previously existed were decommissioned.

helicopter	photo	origin	use	version	active	Ordered
Bölkow Bo 105		Germany	Multipurpose helicopter		8th
Aérospatiale AS 332		France	Transport helicopter	AS 532	4th	1
Bell UH-1		Italy *	Transport helicopter	AB-205	3
Bell 206		Italy *	Transport helicopter	AB-206	5
Eurocopter 145		Germany	VIP transportation	EC 145	1 (1 crashed)
AgustaWestland AW109		Italy	VIP transportation		1

*) former Italian units (manufactured under license by Agusta )

See also

• Ranks of the Albanian Air Force

Web links

Commons : Albanian Air Force  - Collection of Pictures, Videos and Audio Files

• Air Force of the Republic of Albania

Individual evidence

1. ^ Air Force History. In: Albanian Armed Forces. Retrieved July 24, 2017 . 
2. ↑ Lindsay Peacock: The air forces of the world . Bechtermünz, Augsburg 1992, ISBN 3-8289-5334-4 , pp. 56 .
3. ↑ Tragjedia e Llogarasë, dokumenti secretion, pse u rrëzuan helikopterët. In: Funky Fish. November 23, 2009, Retrieved July 24, 2017 (Albanian). 
4. ↑ ASN Aircraft accident 22-NOV-1989 Harbin Z-5 (Mil Mi-4) 6-44. In: Aviation Safety Network. April 7, 2016, accessed July 24, 2017 . 
5. ↑ ASN Aviation Safety Database results. In: Aviation Safety WikiBase. Retrieved July 24, 2017 . 
6. ^ Message on albanien.ch of September 16, 2004. Accessed on July 24, 2017 . 
7. ↑ AL-HOV SE-HOV ZA-HOV Bell 222UT C / N 47555. In: Helicopter Database. Retrieved July 24, 2017 . 
8. ↑ ASN Aircraft accident 16-JUL-2006 Bell 222UT ZA-HOV. In: Aviation Safety Network. March 17, 2013, accessed July 24, 2017 . 
9. ↑ ASN Aircraft 06-APR-2016 Euocopter EC145 FA-637. In: Aviation Safety Network. October 12, 2016, accessed July 24, 2017 . 
10. ↑ Article in "DiePresse.com" of January 23, 2014, accessed on June 26, 2014
11. ↑ World Air Forces 2015 (PDF; 3.7 MB) ( Memento from December 19, 2014 in the Internet Archive )