Author & photographer: Ian French

The Aviación del Ejército de Colombia is currently organised in two operational Brigades, numbered 25 and 33.  The entire fleet of consists of 135 aircraft: 47 Sikorsky UH-60L, 7 Sikorsky 70i, 20 Mil Mi 17, 14 Bell UH-1N, 23 Bell UH-1H-II and 24 fixed wing aircraft.

Brigada 25 de Aviación is organised as follows:

Batallion Abbreviation Type Location
Batallón de Aviación No 1 Aviones BAAV1 Fixed wing Bogota
Batallón de Aviación No 2 Asalto Aereo BAAV2 UH-60 Tolemaida
Batallón de Aviación No 3 Carga y Transporte BAAV3 Mi 17 Tolemaida
Batallón de Aviación No 4 Reconocimiento y Escolta BAAV4 UH-1N Tolemaida
Batallón de Aviación No 5 Movimiento Aereo BAAV5 UH-1H Tolemaida

 

Brigada 33 de Aviación has the following reporting units:

Batallion Location
Batallón de Movilidad y Maniobra de Aviación No.1 Buenavista
Batallón de Movilidad y Maniobra de Aviación No.2 Bucaramanga
Batallón de Movilidad y Maniobra de Aviación No.3 Popayan
Batallón de Movilidad y Maniobra de Aviación No.4 San José del Guaviare
Batallón de Movilidad y Maniobra de Aviación No.5 Neiva
Batallón de Movilidad y Maniobra de Aviación No.6 Larandia
Batallón de Movilidad y Maniobra de Aviación No.7 Medellin
Batallón de Movilidad y Maniobra de Aviación No.8 Saravena

Brigada 33 de Aviación has the following assets:

Base Mi 17 UH-1 UH-60 Fixed Wing
BMMA-1 1 1
BMMA-2 1 6 6 1
BMMA-3 1 3 4 1
BMMA-4 2 1 3 1
BMMA-5 1 1
BMMA-6 2 1 3 1
BMMA-7 1 3 4 1
BMMA-8 1 1

The rest of the aircraft belong to Brigada 25 de Aviación and are based at Bogota and Tolemaida.

Brigada 32 de Aviación is the maintenance unit.

Aviation Press Ltd would like to thank Major General Ricardo Gomez Nieto for hosting our visit and Paolo Di Biagio and Mark Forest for their help in arranging the visit to Tolemaida.  Aviation Press Limited owns the copyrights to this article and associated photographs.

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