The Military Balance 2024 directory indicates that North Korea formally possesses as many as 545 combat aircraft, mostly outdated models. Among them, the most numerous are the MiG-17 and MiG-19 (around 200), Il-28 (around 80), up to 200 units of various MiG-21 modifications, and up to 50 relatively newer MiG-23s.
Among relatively modern combat aircraft, North Korea formally has only 18 MiG-29s and 34 Su-25 attack aircraft, received from the USSR back in the 1980s. It may already be clear that North Korea’s combat aviation fleet consists of a zoo of mostly archaic models, which should long have been in a museum, but it’s also worth looking at the practical aspect of this issue.
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And here’s what the practical side looks like. In September 2016, North Korea held its first and only airshow featuring combat aircraft, which even foreign citizens were allowed to attend.
The leadership of North Korea had several motives for holding such a show. For example, they wanted to respond symmetrically to a similar event that the US and South Korea were conducting around the same time, and at the same time, showcase their capabilities in the combat aviation sector.
Additionally, some observers noted that for Kim Jong Un, who was just beginning his rule in North Korea at the time, aviation was something like a costly and favorite toy. So, the Juche regime aimed to display the best they could put into the air at that moment, which was about 8 years ago.
And here, at this very moment, the practice begins that clearly illustrates what North Korea truly has in terms of combat aviation. As shown by publicly available archival photos from that event, North Korea used more modern aircraft types like the MiG-29 and Su-25 for this propaganda show, with a few older MiG-21s in the background, so to speak.
Additionally, Mi-8 helicopters of the army aviation, Il-18 and Il-62 from the state airline Air Koryo, and Il-76 military transport aircraft also flew. This, in turn, led some Western observers to compare them to museum exhibits.
But all of this also shows that even 8 years ago, North Korea could only get a fairly limited number of its combat aircraft into the air, and clearly, we are talking about the MiG-21, MiG-29, and Su-25, while others (such as the MiG-17, MiG-19, and the Il-28) seem to have finally become non-functional museum pieces, though they may still be listed on paper as being in service.
Moreover, this also demonstrates the real potential of North Korea’s combat aviation as a Kremlin satellite in russia's war against Ukraine.
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