Rare footage about current North Korean Air Force. Featuring Mig-29s, Su-25s, AN-2s and Korean People’s Air Force One

May 15, 2014 North Korea, Troubled Areas
David Cenciotti

Here is a 21-minute video about Korean People’s Air Force (KPAF) air-to-ground inter-unit competition.

Even if it may seem a documentary produced in the 1970s, the following is an interesting footage filmed during the recent Korean People’s Air Force’s combat flight contest which touted the capability of the North Korean air arm.

The video includes footage of KPAF Mig-29s, Su-25s, An-2s, Mig-23s, Mig-21s, Il-28 as well as several helicopters during the May 9’s air demo.

Also featured is the Presidential Il-62 used by Kim Jong Un to reach the airbase where the contest was held: the rarely seen North Korea’s Air Force One shows a livery sensibly different from the paint scheme previously used by the plane, that was almost identical to that of the state airline Air Koryo.

The new paint scheme includes a new badge applied on the tail: a sort of KPA roundel flanked by a blue stylized bird.

Even if the “Air Force Un” livery has been renewed, the fleet is made by quite obsolete aircraft….that seem to be younger than their pilots.

Judge yourself:

NK pilots

Image credit: KCNA

 

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About David Cenciotti
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David Cenciotti is a journalist based in Rome, Italy. He is the Founder and Editor of “The Aviationist”, one of the world’s most famous and read military aviation blogs. Since 1996, he has written for major worldwide magazines, including Air Forces Monthly, Combat Aircraft, and many others, covering aviation, defense, war, industry, intelligence, crime and cyberwar. He has reported from the U.S., Europe, Australia and Syria, and flown several combat planes with different air forces. He is a former 2nd Lt. of the Italian Air Force, a private pilot and a graduate in Computer Engineering. He has written five books and contributed to many more ones.

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6 Comments

  1. Wow! The KPAF flies its gate guard aircraft! Seeing this video is like a Chupacabra sighting.

  2. Hunh…any significance to the fact that Kim the Lesser can’t bring his right arm up in a proper salute? Too many doughnuts?

    Also – MD 530 there in the flight display.

    Are we sure this isn’t a display by the North Korean Commemorative Air Force?

  3. Loved how the planes got more and more primitive as the show progressed. It was like a parade that kept going further back in time. S. Korea should just sign the surrender papers before they have to face such an invincible airforce.

  4. So what? NK has a weak air force, while US has “very” powerful armed forces.
    25 mils people in a strip of land against +300 mils over half a continent.
    Huge economic differences too.
    All this bragging sounds disturbing. Still I am sure some of those shiny US aircraft would come down on their 1940 or 1950 AAA guns and that would become an outstanding result, just as it happened in Kosovo in 1999 with that F-117.
    And if you talk about land invasion, prepare to IED’s, guerrilla tactics and scores of politically incorrect US soldiers death, plus a couple of nukes somewhere to mark an astonishing US defeat.

    So what?

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