[4] A Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) front company, Anstalt WIGMO, provided maintenance support to large parts of the FAC in the 1964–1968 period.

In July 1970 the Institute for Strategic Studies described the Force Aérienne Zaïroise (FAZ) as numbering 650 with 21 combat aircraft.

The Air Combat Information Group states that by the mid-1980s the FAZ suffered from the same problems as the rest of the Zairian Armed Forces, including lack of funding and widespread corruption.

[7] According to FAZ helicopter pilot Pierre Yambuya's tell-all memoir, he regularly had to perform so-called "special missions", consisting of moving prisoners to places where they were tortured or assassinated.

[9] The extreme corruption of the force meant that Zairian aircraft were more often used for private 'business' of their fliers and their superiors[10] than operations against rebels.

Michela Wrong's In the Footsteps of Mr. Kurtz: Living on the Brink of Disaster in the Congo reports a story that the remaining Mirages were sold in France whilst there for maintenance, in order to finance a Zairian Air Force commander's retirement.

Foreign private military companies have reportedly been contracted to provide the DRC's aerial reconnaissance capability using small propeller aircraft fitted with sophisticated equipment.

[17] According to Flight International 2004 and IISS Military Balance 2007 past aircraft have included the MiG-23 Flogger, the Lockheed C-130 Hercules, the de Havilland Canada DHC-5 Buffalo, the North American T-28 Trojan, and the Eurocopter AS332 Super Puma.

[23] The DRC's single Mil Mi-26 'Halo' was shown as a photo in Air Forces Monthly (AFM)'s July 2007 issue without obvious rust and appearing to be in good condition which was taken on April 12, 2007, at Lubumbashi.

A report on the Facebook page of Scramble magazine in December 2018 shows a Hawker Siddeley Andover, Douglas DC-8-55F and Boeing 737 aircraft in use by the DRC-AF at Kinshasa.