Mexican Air Force
The Mexican armed forces saw the value of air power early. In 1911 the Madero revolutionaries flew an airplane on a bombing mission using grenades, and a year later, after Madero became president, three military pilots were sent to the United States for training. Shortly thereafter, one of the rebel groups acquired several airplanes, which, flown by foreign mercenary pilots, supported their ground forces during the advance southward in 1914. Unable to obtain additional aircraft because of the war in Europe, the Carranza government successfully developed and produced a biplane trainer and subsequently a series of other models from both local designs and from modifications of foreign planes.
During the 1920s, the army bought various war-surplus bomber, reconnaissance, fighter, and training aircraft at low cost, although the local aircraft industry continued to produce its own models. In 1932 an air regiment was formed, consisting of one squadron each of Vought Corsair, Douglas, and Bristol fighters. After the United States and Mexico entered World War II, the United States transferred a considerable number of primary and advanced trainers to Mexico, followed by light bombers and amphibious reconnaissance planes that were used to conduct antisubmarine patrols in the Gulf of Mexico. The Mexican air force received additional trainers, bombers, and transport aircraft after the signing of the 1947 Rio Treaty. It acquired jet fighters from Canada and armed jet trainers from the United States in the late 1950s.
The Air Force national headquarters is embedded in the Army headquarters in Mexico City. It also follows the continental staff system, with the usual A1, A2, A3, and A4 sections. The air force, organized in 1996 into two wings and ten air groups, had a personnel complement of 8,000 in 1996, including 1,500 assigned to the airborne brigade. The tactical forces formed what is loosely called an Air Division, but it is dispersed in four regions-Northeast, Northwest, Central, and Southern.
As of 2006 the Air Force maintained a total of 18 air bases, and had the additional capability of opening temporary forward operating bases in austere conditions for some of the rotary wing and light fixed-wing assets. The air force's principal air base, Military Air Base Number 1, is located at Santa Lucía in the state of México. Other major air bases are located at Ixtepec in Oaxaca, Isla Cozumel in Quintana Roo, Zapopán in Veracruz, and Mérida in Yucatán, as well as El Ciprés and La Paz (both in Baja California Sur) and Puebla and Píe de la Cuesta (both in Guerrero).
Delivery, beginning in 1982, of ten F-5E Tiger II fighter aircraft and two F-5F two-seater trainers from the United States enabled Mexico to form a supersonic air defense squadron armed with Sidewinder missiles. As part of a construction agreement with the United States, the runways at the Santa Lucía air base were lengthened and facilities renovated to accommodate the new planes. In 1982 the air force also acquired the first of some seventy Pilatus PC-7 turboprop planes from Switzerland. In 1996 forty of the PC-7s were organized into three counterinsurgency squadrons, and the remainder are available for both training and counterinsurgency operations. Also capable of being armed for counterinsurgency tasks is one squadron of twelve AT-33s (Lockheed Shooting Star), a much older aircraft used mainly as a jet trainer. One squadron of Bell 205, 206, and 212 armed helicopters also is designated for a counterinsurgency role. One squadron of IAI 201s (the Israeli Arava, a short-takeoff-and-landing utility transport) is assigned to search-and-air rescue, and a photo reconnaissance squadron is made up of Rockwell Commander 500Ss. Five transport squadrons are equipped with C-47s, C-118s, C-130s, and some small aircraft. The Presidential Transport Squadron, based at the Benito Juárez International Airport in Mexico City, has seven Boeing 727s and one Boeing 737, together with smaller transport planes and a number of helicopters (see table 14, Appendix). A Westinghouse mobile radar system purchased in 1988 was activated at the close of 1991 to track suspicious aircraft in Guatemalan air space flying toward the Mexican border. The system was introduced both as a security measure to survey air activity along the Guatemalan border and to track planes smuggling narcotics from South America.
In early 1996, the air force acquired twenty-nine UH-1H "Huey" and eighteen Bell 206 helicopters from the Federal Judicial Police for use in military-assisted counternarcotics operations. In a sign of the growing militarization of Mexico's drug war under the administration of President Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de León, in May 1996, negotiations were underway for the permanent transfer of an additional seventy-three surplus "Hueys" from the United States to the Mexican air force.
The Mexican Air Force, with just under 12,000 members, had a fleet in 2006 of 107 combat aircraft (including 10 F-5s, 70 Pilatus PC-7s, and 17 T-33s); 71 armed helicopters, mainly Bell Jet Ranger and Huey variants, but including some Soviet Mi 8s; and another 90 transport helicopters. It has a transport fleet of 35 aircraft, including one Boeing 757, 3 Boeing 727, and 7 C-130 Hercules.13 In all, the Mexican Air Force maintains some 32 different types of aircraft.
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