When was the Mexican Air Force created?

Mexico's military aviation is among the oldest in Latin America, and its origin is tied to the Revolution. Before it existed as a formal branch, aircraft were already fighting: in April 1914, over Topolobampo Bay, the Sonora biplane piloted by Gustavo Salinas Camiña attacked federal gunboats, one of the first naval air attacks in history.

On 5 February 1915 Venustiano Carranza, as First Chief of the Constitutionalist Army, signed in Veracruz the decree creating the Military Aviation Arm. That same year saw the founding of the National Aviation School and the National Aeronautical Construction Workshops (TNCA), which went on to design and build their own aircraft, propellers and engines, something uncommon at the time outside Europe and the United States.

For almost three decades aviation remained under the Army. On 10 February 1944, in the middle of World War II, President Manuel Ávila Camacho raised it to the status of Mexican Air Force, with its own command within the Secretariat of National Defense. That date is commemorated today as Air Force Day. A year later, Squadron 201 fought in the Philippines with P-47 Thunderbolt fighters, the only Mexican unit to have fought in a war abroad.

The FAM remains part of SEDENA and is not a separate ministry, unlike the Navy. Its main missions are airspace surveillance, troop transport and humanitarian aid, and support for internal security; its fleet combines a handful of F-5 fighters, T-6 trainers, C-295 and C-130 transports, UH-60 helicopters, and a broad network of bases and schools.