Sri Lanka Air Force

Small but potent and combat-tested, the Sri Lanka Air Force operates a variety of interesting aircraft. We provide a base-by-base overview of the situation back in 2011.

Colombo/Bandaranaike Intl - Katunayake

The heavy transports moved from Ratmalana to the international airport. The former British C-130Ks are operated by 2sq, two of which survive.

Four An-32B are operated by 2sq too.

All of the front line fighter aircraft are based at the International airport too. Two main variants of the F-7 are used. The F-7BS is the older version delivered in 1991.

Whereas the F-7GS is the 'cranked-wing' version that entered service with 5sq in 2007/2008.

Just a single dual seat aircraft was obtained.

Sri Lanka was one of the few export customers for the Israeli Kfir. No.10sq still operates these veterans.

Civil traffic has to make way as a Kfir retuns from a sortie.

Some think the TC2 variant looks a bit ungainly, we just think it is awesome!

Last unit at Katunayake Air Base, as the military side of the airport is known, is the Aircraft Engineering Wing. They perform maintenance on current fighter types.

Also, they keep the now withdrawn MiG-23UB in storage...

...as well as the mighty MiG-27 that was still operational when we visited back in 2011.

Apart from the MiG-27 War reserve, a line-up of various helicopters awaiting overhaul can usually be found at the back of the Aircraft Engineering Wing's hangars.

Colombo/Ratmalana

SLAF's VVIP helicopter and light transport hub is located at Ratmalana, also the home of the Air Force Museum. Chinese built Y-12 Pandas are in use as medium transports.

The Beech 200 is operated in various subtypes. Seen here is the B200, SLAF also has dedicated reconnaissance variants.

Helicopters for VVIP use are gloss black Bell 412EPs of 4sq often using the same serial. The squadron also has some regular Bell 212s.

Trincomalee/China Bay

China Bay is the place were SLAF pilots are trained. They start on the Ce150...

...and continue on the CJ6, a Chinese development of the Yak-52.

Fighter pilots then proceed to the K-8 Karakorum.

Anuradhapura

Also in the Northern half of the country is helicopter base Anuradhapura. It houses the Mi-17 fleet of 6sq. Seen here is a Mi-171.

These helicopters are usually detached and dispersed around the country.

Hingarukgoda/Minneriya

Main helicopter base is Hingarukgoda. Here 7sq uses two vairants of Bell helicopters. The Bell 206...

...and the Bell 212.

Of course, apart from transports like the Bell 212, the attack helicopters of 9sq also have their domicile here. This is a Mi-35V being tested after some maintenance was performed.

The Mi-35P is the export version of the twin-barelled Mi-24P. But most numerous is the V model.

This concludes our overview, well not quite, we could not resist this MiG-23UB as a tribute to SLAF's heritage.