Hmmmm,

I thought about this option as well but it seems feasible only for the period following the collapse of the Communist regime, from 1992 till now. Before that, apparently, there was a law that explicitly prohibited cannibalisation of military hardware, including aircraft. Probably they grounded aircraft but didn’t cannibalise them.
This still makes a period of 14-15 years of self reliance.

Most of the Chinese jets in the AAF inventory were produced during the “Cultural revolution” with obvious quality problems. The F-6-s in particular were sort of artisan made and seldom had interchangeable airframe parts like modern aircraft of the same type do. If one considers the fact that most of the 60 F-6 that Albania got altogether were physically still present in the inventory in 1992, we have to assume that their level of repair and rebuild wasn’t negligible.

Lets try to put some order into this discussion. Oppinions are not equivalent to facts and I think we need to base ourselves on the latter.

I tried some elementary arithmetics based on the following facts:
Last shipment of Chinese jets and spare parts to Albania was in 1977.
Albanian aircraft are still technically capable of flying in 2005.

Thus it is a period of 28 years that we are disccusing about. The majority of the jet fleet of the AAF was made up of J-6, reputated to be very laborious to maintain. In the meantime the MiG 19 was long gone from the inventories of East-European nations and other than China, no other country produced it.

So, where could the Albanians obtain the neccesary spare parts and engines to keep their jets running during this time? Did they have stocks that could last so long? Did they fabricate everything they needed by themselvels, in full accordance with their much emphasised autharcy? Did they buy spares from other F-6 users like Egypt or Pakistan?

So far we have Kapedani stating that they produced everything they needed and Miroslav adamantly staing that this quite impossible!

There should be more than those two contradicting statements to possibly explain how the AAF kept its jets flying. There should be at least some facts.

The Albanian- Swedish connection on the 80′ on Defence industry sems to be well proven. Apparently, Bofors built a modern ammo factory in the country while SAAB undertook the production of airframe and engine parts using Chinese original doccuments and specifications that were provided by the Albanians. Rumors mantain that there were some quality problems on some of the parts produced in Sweden which coused at least a fatal crash. The faith in the Swedish quality and engeniering was so high in Albania that the problems were imputed to “sabotage”acts with ensuing reprisals ammong the officers of the AAF.

As for the AAF maintenance facility in Kucova, it seems to have had important capabilities in reparing and rebuilding the types in the inventory of the AAF. There are Chinese doccument that specify its main parameters and it appears that is was pretty much alike the initial PAF Kamra facility albeit smaller in size.

Is it true that Albania recieved 1 two-seater version (FT-6) of the Shenyang F-6 and some of the reconnaissance version FZ-6?[/QUOTE]

In my oppinion the AAF didn’t receive any FT-6. The last delivery of chinese jets came to the country by 1977 when the FT-6 was still in it infancy phase. The Albanian probably received a couple of FZ-6 but I am not so sure on it.

As to the Mig 19 PM, yes they had 3 digit numbers, I think the closest exemplare in the picture I sow bore the 350 or 352.

This is for Anton.

I was given this picture in summer 2002 from an old former pilot of the AAF. I was told it depicts one of the newly arrived Shenyang F-6 in 1966. It sems that Albania din’t receive the J-5 but had original MiG 17F. The explanation by Kapedani on the absence of roundels is correct. I havent’t seen any painted F-6 during my visits in the country.

This could have been an interesting thread about the air force of a small country in Europe that only in the last decade came out of long self imposed isolation and is facing now like other nations around the same logical dilemas and hard choices.

it is really a pity that Kapedani spoiled it like he usually does in every thread by listing pseudopatriotic boostings and by thus drawing the usual comments from its neighbours. It is much better when he just post pictures.

Keeping a decent fighter component in the structure of the future Albanian Air Force doesn’t seem a realistic option due to budget constraints and other reasons as well. It will make much more sense to have some decent polyvalent helos and a couple of tactical transports. If the country wants to join NATO it will have to bring with something useful to the Alliance.

Condolences to the familes for the tragic loss of nine lives.

I read that the aircraft crashed into a mountin area with more than a meter of snow. Apparently it issued an SOS before the fatal crash. Albanian SAR operation got underway imediatly afterwards with special unit, local people and helicopter flights checking the crash area until all personnel on board was recovered, very unfortunately not alive.