AirForces Monthly – December 2018

The ever-impressive F-4 Phantom II adorns the cover of the latest issue of AFM. Andravida is the last bastion of the Greek ‘Rhino’, and it was where Gert Kromhout spoke to the Phantom drivers of 338 Mira. Even more antiquated than the venerable F-4 are the Portuguese Air Force’s seven de Havilland Canada Chipmunks, which made a remarkable return to operational status in the mid-1990s and still perform a vital task today.

More recent equipment is profiled in a visit to Istrana air base, now the sole home of Italy’s versatile AMX fighter-bomber, while future fighters are under scrutiny as Jon Lake explains why the long-predicted ‘rise of the machines’ has not materialised in quite the way many had expected, and how tomorrow’s fighters might differ from today’s combat aircraft.

It’s been a busy year for Polish military aviation, and AFM completes its review of the three Polish air arms with an analysis of the air force in its centenary year, as Bartek Bera and Filip Modrzejewski examine the most significant force to wear the famous red and white chequerboard.

On the ops side, we assess the Brazilian Air Force’s Operação Ostium – intended to thwart drug running along the country’s borders – and the little-known air arm of Burkina Faso, part of the multinational ‘G5 Sahel Joint Force’.

Our regular Force Report profiles the Montenegrin Air Force, analysing the current status and ongoing modernisation of Europe’s youngest air arm, while on the rotary-wing side, Ian Harding visited Leonardo’s Yeovil facility to reflect on the ongoing success of the AW101 Merlin.

In a new feature, Postcard from…, aircraft from one of the world’s most secretive air arms were photographed by Hans Jacobs during a recent visit to Yangon in Myanmar.