Former South Korean Defenders to Kenya

The Dae Han Min Guk Yuk Gun (RoKA, Republic of Korea Army) is in the process of retiring its fleet of MD500MD Defender helicopters, although its successor the KAI LAH only just started mass production and first examples are expected to be delivered in 2024.

Some retired helicopters found their way to technical schools and universities to act as ground instructional frames. But now the first six out of a total donation of sixteen MD500s have been shipped to the US for repairs and maintenance before delivery to Kenya. There they will be used for United Nations (UN) peacekeeping missions. This donation was already agreed in 2021 during a UN forum hosted by South Korea.

Korean Air’s aerospace division built 200 of these little helicopters under license from 1976 to 1984, however we have more than 280 serials in the Scramble Magazine database. Many were actually never noted, but as the last three of the serials are sequential, starting with 760001 and highest number noted being 880283, we believe this to be correct.

Credit photo: Jeho Kim - Korea Aero Photos (via airliners.net)