North Macedonian Air Force at 30

from The Aviation Magazine – No. 79 – 2022-07&08

BACCARAT 2021, France

NORTH MACEDONINAN AIR FORCE AT 30

TEXT: IGOR BOZINOVSKY |

The Macedonia Air Force marked its 30th anniversary on 9 June with a modest celebration held at "Strasho Pindjur" military barracks at Petrovec AB, some 17 km south-east of the capital Skopje. The celebration saw a flying program that involved flypasts of three aircraft: A Mi-17 transport helicopter, a Bell 206B-3 training helicopter, and a Zlin 242L fixed-wing piston engine trainer. The celebration was enriched by a fly-past of a pair of Hellenic Air Force F-16 Fighting Falcon jets of the Araxos-based 335th Squadron Tigers: the AIM-9L-armed single-seat F-16C Block 52+ and a twin-seat F-16D Block 52+. The static display showed an immaculately-looking Mi-24V, Mi-17, Bell 206B-3, and Zlin 242L. Established on paper on 10 April 1992, the Macedonian Air Force celebrates 10 June as the Air Force Day (Den na voenoto vozduhoplovstvo) to mark the first flight of Macedonian military aircraft on 10 June 1992 when Maj. Dane Ilijevski and Cap. Aleksandar Manev took off from Patrovec AB with an Utva 75A-21 pistonengine, twin-seat basic training and utility aircraft for what is now celebrated as the first historic military flight for Macedonia. Being a member of NATO, Macedonia plans to invest significant funds in the rejuvenation of its helicopter fleet in addition to building air surveillance and modernizing its air defense capacities. The Russian invasion of Ukraine certainly tends to speed up these processes which are yet to result in withdrawal from the use of the Mi-24V helicopters, a fate that is also expected for the aged and logistically increasingly demanding Mi-8MT/17 fleet. The replacement for the Soviet-era workhorses would very likely be brand-new helicopters produced by the Western manufacturers. Listed here per alphabetical order are potentially interesting products they may be offered to Macedonia: Airbus (H145M and H215M), Bell (Bell 407M and Bell 412M), Leonardo (AW169M, AW139M and AW149), Lockheed Martin/Sikorsky/ PZL-Mielec (UH-60M or S-70i), and MD Helicopters (MD530F).