Colombia Air Force retirements
The Fuerza Aérea Colombiana (FAC, Colombian Air Force) said goodbye to a number of venerable types in its inventory in the past few years. To rationalize logistics and cut costs, older types have been retired and sometimes been replaced.
Although no successor has yet been found, 2020 saw the retirement of the fleet of seven remaining Cessna OA/A-37B Dragon of Escuadron de Combate 311 Dragones at Barranquilla. In the past years, the FAC went to great lengths to keep some of the A-37s airworthy, and even went as far as requiring surplus aircraft from Chile and the Dominican Republic and brought them back into the air, but now the curtain has fallen for this old warrior. These counter-insurgency aircraft have proven very useful over the past four decades given the Colombian security challenges, with guerrilla activity and narcotraffic.
The single remaining C-26B Metro (SR-26) of the air force was handed over to the Colombian National Police and added to their fleet of C-26s, whilst a pair of Cessna 337 aircraft were retired as well.
In 2021, the replacement of the Cessna T-37 Tweet started with the delivery of the first Beechcraft T-6C Texan IIs to CACOM 1 at Palanquero. By mid-June 2021, all thirteen flyable T-37s had been taken from service. Deliveries of T-6A Texan IIs are slowly progressing, with seven currently operational with the FAC. Aircraft #7 appeared to be the 1,000th Beechcraft T-6 Texan II built!
The military aviation school (EMAVI) at Cali, meanwhile, retired the last of two types that saw decades long service with the air force, the Boeing PT-17 Stearman (2) and DHC U-6A Beaver (1). Although no longer operationally flown, the types were kept airworthy for years as a memory of the FAC’s long history.
This year, the Cessna T-41D Mescalero was replaced with the Cessna 172S Skyhawk, and the last ten Mescaleros have left the operational inventory. Eight Cessna 172s have so far been delivered to EMAVI at Cali and taken up basic training, alongside the CIAC T-90C Calimas.
Unfortunately, another icon has left service this year, with the retirement of the FAC’s single remaining IAI 201 Arava, FAC1952, which was originally delivered in 1980.
As for the future, the retirement date of the Colombian Kfir fighters has been mentioned as being in 2023, with no successor in sight as yet. The new Colombian president has stated replacing the Kfirs is not his number one priority while in office and a deal for Lockheed-Martin F-16s has been rumoured for years, but has yet to materialize.
Photos by Wim Sonneveld