The 117th Fighter Aviation Regiment (Serbo-Croatian: 117. lovački avijacijski puk / 117. ловачки авијацијски пук) was a unit established in 1944 as the 112th Fighter Aviation Regiment (Serbo-Croatian: 112. vazduhoplovni lovački puk / 112. ваздухопловни ловачки пук).

After the war, the regiment moved briefly to Slovenia, being based at Ljubljana, but it returned to Pleso near Zagreb.

From 1946 to 1947 it was re-located several times between Mostar, Ljubljana and Novi Sad, due to the crisis in the north-west of the country.

The commanders of the regiment in this period were Sava Poljanec, Đuro Ivanišević, Mile Ćurgus, Radovan Daković, Mihajlo Nikolić and Nikola Lekić.

The first pilot in the Yugoslav Air Force trained to fly the Thunderjet was Lieutenant Colonel Milorad Ivanović, commander of the 117th Regiment.

[5] In that period the unit was renamed the 117th Fighter-Bomber Aviation Regiment (Serbo-Croatian: 117. lovačko-bombarderski avijacijski puk / 117. ловачко-бомбардерски авијацијски пук).

This base remained the home of the regiment until 1991, when all Yugoslav People's Army units left the complex and it was destroyed.

[7] On October 25, a pilot of the 352nd Reconnaissance Aviation Squadron, Croat Rudolf Perešin defected from Željava to Klagenfurt, Austria.

[9][1] On January 7, 1992, the Regiment's pilot Emir Šišić downed a helicopter of the European Community Monitor Mission after it entered Croatian air space.

As a reaction, the Chief of the General staff, commander of the Yugoslav Air Force in that period, Lieutenant-General Zvonko Jurjević was suspended.

After the order for the withdrawal of the Yugoslav People's Army from Bosnia in the spring of 1992, the 117th Regiment left Željava on April 22–24.