SLAF has a brilliant record regarding aircraft maintenance. If my memory is right only 3 aircraft have come down due to technical faults;
1 Antov transport/Chinese variant Y-8(?)
1 Bell helicopter in 2007 (at the time the LTTE attacked the Anuradhapura Air base). I think this bird was rushed into the air and sadly we lost two greater assets then the helicopter, our brilliant pilots to which you cannot put a price tag.
1 Mi-24 also hit the ground some time in 2009 or 2010, thankfully no loss of life.
It is very heart warming to know that the SLAF maintain such brilliant and high standards, on par with the worlds best air forces and our engineering boys are excellent in their adaptation and skill, especially when you consider the limited resources coupled to the work load (regarding the war). It’s also further sweetening when you consider the unwanted Elephant across the Straits has the worst record in history, in spite of all it's mammoth resources
1 Antov transport/Chinese variant Y-8(?)
1 Bell helicopter in 2007 (at the time the LTTE attacked the Anuradhapura Air base). I think this bird was rushed into the air and sadly we lost two greater assets then the helicopter, our brilliant pilots to which you cannot put a price tag.
1 Mi-24 also hit the ground some time in 2009 or 2010, thankfully no loss of life.
It is very heart warming to know that the SLAF maintain such brilliant and high standards, on par with the worlds best air forces and our engineering boys are excellent in their adaptation and skill, especially when you consider the limited resources coupled to the work load (regarding the war). It’s also further sweetening when you consider the unwanted Elephant across the Straits has the worst record in history, in spite of all it's mammoth resources
In your third example above(which is regarding MI 24 helicopter),unfortunately we lost two brilliant pilots.It happened on 27th of November,2009.Those two pilots was,Squadron Leader Esala Dodanmaluwa and,Flight Lieutenant Rehan Fernando .......................... we salute our heros.................
Thanx.
I think at least one of them have already been delivered, because a MA-60 wearing the SLAF colors has been spotted flying around RML.
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