| The Syrian Air Force |
While searching the world wide web you won't find much (less then nothing)
about the Syrian Arab Air Force. Apart from the Internet, very little is
published about this air force and we are well aware of the fact that the
information included in this Order of Battle is far from complete and not as
accurate as we would like it to be. Therefore we hope to receive feedback
from our visitors! So when you have additions and/or corrections to the
information presented on this Order of Battle, please do not hesitate to use
the Update form on the bottom of the Order of Battle page!
A short history of Syria and it's air force:
The Syrian Arab Air Force is one of the air force's in the Middle East that
suffered the from the many wars with Israel in the past 40 years. The
build-up began after the second world war when Syria gained its independence
from France and Great Britain and during the 1950's the air force grew
mainly due to the forming of the United Arab Republic (the alliance with
Egypt). The biggest build-up however followed after Hafez Al Assad became
President of Syria. Under Assad the Syrians made strong ties with the
Russians that resulted in an expansion of the air force through acquisitions
of Russian equipment.
Despite a massive modernisation the Syrians suffered some big defeats in the
Middle Eastern wars throughout the years. The latest of those being the
complete loss of the airspace over Lebanon to Israel.(the destruction on the
ground in only a few hours is something never forgotten in Syria, as is the
loss of the Golan Heights during the 1967 war.)
Due to the high security level on everything military the past and the
present of the Syrian Arab Air Force is still pretty foggy. This makes it
hard to judge the real strength of the air force today. It is known that the Syrians are equipped with
MiG-25s which are most likely going to be upgraded to the latest M version
and the main task of these birds would then be the destruction of AWACS
aircraft.Of the many MiG-21's and MiG-23's delivered most likely only a few
are currently operational. After the death of Hafez al Assad (his son taking
over from him) the Syrians strengthened their ties with the Russians and
delivery of new MiG-29s were a result of it. So far only a few
MiG-29s are delivered and they are apparently based at two bases,
one being close to Turkey (still one of the biggest enemies of Syria) and
the other is located in the Damascus area. More Russian deliveries are
rumoured.
In our Order of Battle section we give an overview of the Syrian Arab Air
Force air bases and their assigned units and aircraft. You will notice that
there are many airports and air bases with paved runways. Of the two
heliports one might very well be used by the Ka-25 helicopters of the Navy
which is located near the Syrian principal Mediterranean coastal port of
Latakia.
Airports - with paved runways:
total: 24
over 3,047 m: 5
2,438 to 3,047 m: 16
914 to 1,523 m: 1
under 914 m: 2
Airports - with unpaved runways:
total: 80
1,524 to 2,437 m: 3
914 to 1,523 m: 14
under 914 m: 63
Heliports: 2
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All drawings: Chris Bishop/World Air Power Journal
| More |
You can find more about the Syrian Air Force on these pages. On the Order of Battle page we show you where the
main bases of the syaf are. A map of Syria is available. Click on an airbase to see what's there to be found. Also we present links to
Microsoft's Expediamaps services: with each airbase you can find a link to a map of the airbases' neighbourhood .
Order of Battle
Reading the serialnumbers
The Database
Links to Related Websites
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