List of Iraqi Air Force aircraft squadrons

Squadrons are the main form of flying unit of the Iraqi Air Force (IqAF).

Malovany writes that the first flying squadron of the air force was established in 1932 at Mosul, equipped with 20 Audax and Gipsy Moth aircraft, and the second squadron at Rasheed Air Base in 1933 with 10 de Havilland Dragons.[1]

Night flying certification for the UH-1 crews of the Iraqi 2nd Squadron
  • 1st Squadron (Iraq)
  • 2nd Squadron (Iraq)
    • 1961 - Mil Mi-4[3] Rasheed Air Base. The squadron was established that year.[7]
    • 1964 - Mi-4 & Westland Wessex[8]
    • 1977-78 - Mil Mi-8, Rasheed Air Base (British Air Attache's report, July 1978).
    • The squadron was reestablished at Taji in 2004-05 flying donated Jordanian UH-1s, but suffered severe spares shortages. "The mission failure at Taji should have come as no surprise, if only because it happened in slow motion and in full view. Its immediate cause was a lack of spares, but that shortage was only the latest in a lengthy series of neglects. In a detailed end-of-tour analysis submitted in late June [2005], departing 6th SOS advisor Major William Denehan pulled no punches. He wrote, “IqAF 2nd Squadron is currently non-functional.. ..Aircraft acquisition was poorly managed, unplanned, and unsupported... [and] overall IqAF development has been severely neglected and poorly managed”.[9]
    • "A year after a number of Huey IIs were delivered to an Alabama-based contractor, the first shipment of five rebuilt helicopters returned to Iraq on 16 February [2007].[10] Following several days’ reassembly and flight testing at NAMAB, they were turned over to Squadron 2 at Taji. Over the next few months, several were occasionally flown back to NAMAB, Phoenix Base, and Baghdad’s Green Zone to take Iraqi defense officials aloft for the benefit of the press; these excursions were moments of considerable pride for the IqAF.[11] Otherwise, the Hueys were used to train Iraqi airmen. Although the rebuilt aircraft had been factory equipped with protective armor, they remained within Taji’s airspace for the first several months. This restriction was not imposed from an excess of caution: between 20 January and 3 March, Iraqi insurgents had shot down or damaged eight US helicopters.65 As a result, it was not until 10 April that two Iraqi pilots made Squadron 2’s first flights outside Taji’s perimeter. Those sorties included live-fire exercises using externally mounted machine guns.[12] Five more aircraft arrived at NAMAB on 2 May, and the final six were airlifted in from the United States on 29 July, by which time Squadron 2 had accumulated about 1,300 flying hours in training missions, passenger movement, and infrastructure protection and assessment."[13]
    • Listed by D.J. Elliott at Taji with Bell UH-1s in November 2009 and May 2010.[14][15]
    • Scramble.nl does not list the squadron as operational in January 2019. The UH-1s may have been transferred to the army.
  • 3rd Squadron (Iraq)
  • 4th Squadron (Iraq)
  • 5th Squadron (Iraq)
  • 6th Squadron (Iraq)
  • 7th Squadron (Iraq)
  • 8th Squadron (Iraq)
  • 9th Squadron (Iraq)
  • 11th Squadron (Iraq)
  • 12th Squadron
  • 14th Squadron
    • 2002 - MiG-21 fighter-bombers flying from Al Habbaniyah airfield.[5]
  • 17th Squadron
  • 18th Squadron
  • 23rd Squadron (Iraq)
  • 33rd Squadron (Iraq) - Scramble.nl reports that it was flying Antonov An-32Bs (six aircraft) from New Al Muthanna/BIAP circa 2017-2018.[20]
  • 36th Squadron - Tupolev Tu-22 "Blinder", c.1977-1980 and afterwards.[21]
  • 44th Squadron - flying Sukhoi Su-22 in April 1988.[18] Possibly located at Al-Taqaddum Air Base just before the start of the Iraq War, in 2003.[22] Still flying Su-22s from Habbaniyah in 2002.[5]
  • 69th Squadron (Iraq) - flying Sukhoi Su-22 in April 1988.[18]
  • 70th Squadron (Iraq)
  • 73rd Squadron (Iraq) - Habbaniyah, 2002.[5]
  • 79th Squadron (Iraq) - Mirages in late 1980s.[18]
  • 81st Squadron (Iraq) - Mirages in the late 1980s.
  • 87th Squadron (Iraq)
  • 89th Squadron - flying Dassault Mirage F1 in 1988.[18]
  • 91st Squadron - flying Dassault Mirage F1 in 1988.[18]
  • 109th Squadron - flying Sukhoi Su-22 in April 1988.[18] Su-25s from Habbaniyah 2002.[5]
  • 115th Squadron (Iraq)
  • 201st Squadron - training, redesignated from 1 Training Squadron in 2011.[23]
  • 202nd Squadron - training, formed after 2008

In September 1980, reconnaissance units included "MiG-21Rs of No. 70 Squadron based at Rashid air base in Baghdad and also Su-22s from 44th Squadron (Iraq) at Firas air base in Mosul."[4]

In 1988, the 79th, 89th, 81st, and 91st Squadrons flew Mirages.[18]

201, 202, 203, and 204 Squadrons are post-2005 training squadrons.[24]

Further reading
  • Tom Cooper and Ahmad Sadik, Iraqi Fighters: 1953–2003: Camouflage and Markings. Harpia Publishing, 2008, ISBN 978-0-615-21414-6.
  • Tom Cooper and Milos Sipos, Iraqi Mirages: Dassault Mirage Family In Service With Iraqi Air Force, 1981-1988 (Middle East@War) Paperback – 28 Feb 2019
  • Tom Cooper and David Nicolle, Arab MiG-19 and MiG-21 Units in Combat. Osprey Publishing, Oxford 2004, ISBN 1-84176-655-0.
  • Tom Cooper and David Nicolle, Arab MiGs. Volume 1: Mikoyan i Gurevich MiG-15 and MiG-17 in Service with Air Forces of Algeria, Egypt, Iraq, Morocco and Syria. Harpia Publishing, Houston 2009, ISBN 978-0-9825539-2-3.
  • Tom Cooper and David Nicolle, Arab MiGs. Volume 2: Supersonic Fighters: 1956–1967. Harpia Publishing, Houston 2011, ISBN 978-0-9825539-6-1.
  • Tom Cooper, David Nicolle, Lon Nordeen and Patricia Salti: Arab MiGs. Volume 3: The June 1967 War. Harpia Publishing, Houston 2012, ISBN 978-0-9825539-9-2.

Notes
  1. Malovany, 2007, p. 795.
  2. Malovany 2017, 72 fn 6.
  3. "Kuwait "Emergency", 1961". Air Combat Information Group. Retrieved 25 January 2017.
  4. Tom Cooper. "The Tomcat's First Phoenix Kill". War is Boring. Retrieved 19 September 2018.
  5. "Appendix 2 (Air Order of Battle) to Annex B (Intelligence) to LOGCAP Contingency Support Plan" (PDF). White House FOIA/Army Materiel Command. 7 December 2002.
  6. Scramble.nl, January 2019
  7. Malovany, 809.
  8. "Rashid Airfield" (PDF). CIA. Retrieved 25 January 2017.
  9. Cully, 32.
  10. “Special Delivery,” Advisor 4, no. 8 (24 February 2007): 7.65. Jordan, “Iraqi Air Force Opens Training Center, Advisor 4, no 15 (14 April 2007): 6; and Claudia Parsons, “Iraqi Air Force Shows Off Rebuilt Huey Helicopters,” Reuters, 3 March 2007, http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSPAR347933.
  11. “Huey II,” Advisor 4, no. 9 (3 March 2007): 11; MC2 Elisandro Diaz, “Iraqi Air Force Celebrates 76 years,” Advisor 4, no. 17 (28 April 2007): 4 and 5; and “First Five Iraqi Huey IIs Delivered,” Air International, April 2007, 8.
  12. 66. Erik Holmes, “Iraqis Fly First Helicopter Training Sortie,” Air Force Times, 11 April 2007, http://www.airforcetimes.com/news/2007/04/airforce_iraqi_airforce_070411/%5B%5D. 66
  13. Cully
  14. https://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/files/ISF_OOB_2010-06/Page_6_-_IZAF.pdf
  15. https://www.army.mil/article/33455/air_cav_iraqi_air_force_maintain_partnership_with_joint_flight
  16. Allen, Patrick (8 February 2006). "New Iraqi Air Force boosted by aircraft and joint operations". Jane's Defence Weekly. p. 31. & Cully
  17. David Niccole, Tom Cooper, Arab MiG-19 and MiG-21 Units in Combat, Osprey Publishing, 2004, 78.
  18. Pierre Razoux, "The Iran-Iraq War," Harvard University Press, 2015, ISBN 0674088638, 9780674088634, p.540
  19. Allen 2006 and Cully
  20. Scramble, Dutch Aviation Society. "Iraqi Air Force". www.scramble.nl. Retrieved 2018-09-21.
  21. National Intelligence Council, Kevin M. Woods, Saddam’s Generals: Perspectives of the Iran-Iraq War, 195.
  22. https://en.valka.cz/topic/view/15661/1991-Valka-v-Perskem-zalivu-rozpracovano
  23. https://warisboring.com/four-years-after-a-massacre-the-iraqi-air-force-opens-a-new-academy/
  24. https://warisboring.com/four-years-after-a-massacre-the-iraqi-air-force-opens-a-new-academy/; www.scramble.nl.

References
  • George W. Cully, "Adapt or fail : the USAF’s role in reconstituting the Iraqi Air Force 2004-2007" Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama : Air University Press, Air Force Research Institute, 2016. ISBN 9781585662692. Public Domain - U.S. government work.
  • Pesach Malovany, "Wars of Modern Babylon", University Press of Kentucky, June 2017, ISBN 0813169437 / ISBN 978-0813169439. List of second group of squadrons formed in fn. 2, p.813 (3rd Squadron at Al-Rashid (Audaxs in 1934; 4th Squadron at Kirkuk (Gloster Gladiator in 1937); 5th Squadron at al-Rashid (Breda aircraft in 1938); 6th Squadron at Baghdad (Savoia aircraft in 1938); and 7th Squadron at al-Rashid (Douglas Aircraft planes in 1941).
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