The first flight training courses in-country were initiated in October 1954 by French instructors seconded from the airforce component of the French Far East Expeditionary Corps (CEFEO) at the newly founded Royal Flying School (École de l'Air Royale) in Pochentong airfield near Phnom Penh, though Khmer pilot students (Élèves pilotes Khmers – EPKs) were later sent to the École de l'air in France.

During the first years of its existence, the AVRK received assistance from France – which under the terms of the November 1953 treaty of independence had the right to keep a military mission in Cambodia –, the United States, Japan, Israel, and West Germany,[2] who provided training programs, technical aid, and additional aircraft.

The baptism of fire of the AVRK came the following year when its FD-25 Defenders and T-6G Texan armed trainers supported Khmer Royal Army troops in Takéo Province fighting a cross-border incursion by Vietnamese militiamen from the Hòa Hảo militant sect fleeing persecution from the neighbouring Republic of Vietnam.

[9] Also under the U.S. MAAG program, the AVRK received in March 1963 four Cessna T-37B Tweet jet trainers;[10] however, unlike the Fougas provided earlier by the French, these airframes had no provision for weapon systems, since the Americans resisted Cambodian requests to arm them.

[12] In response to the coup against President Ngô Đình Diệm in South Vietnam, Prince Sihanouk cancelled on November 20, 1963, all American aid, and on January 15, 1964, the US MAAG program was suspended when Cambodia adopted a neutrality policy,[13] so the AVRK continued to rely on French military assistance but at the same time turned to Australia, Yugoslavia, the Soviet Union and China for aircraft and training.

[17] Like the other branches of the then FARK, the Royal Cambodian Aviation's own military capabilities by the late 1960s remained unimpressive, being barely able to accomplish its primary mission which was to defend the national airspace.

Apart from two modern tarmacked airstrips located respectively at Pochentong and at a Chinese-built civilian airport in Siem Reap, the other available airfields in the country at the time consisted of rudimentary unpaved runways that lacked permanent rear-echelon support facilities, which were only used temporarily as emergency landing strips but never as secondary airbases.

A more serious clash occurred on March 21, 1964, when a patrol of two AVRK T-28D fighter-bombers penetrated 3.22 km (over 2 Mi) into South Vietnam and shot down an L-19 light aircraft in retaliation for a RVNAF strike into Cambodia, killing both the Vietnamese pilot and the American observer.

After securing material support from the United States, South Vietnam, and Thailand, the new Khmer National Aviation immediately commenced combat operations, and embarked on an ambitious reorganisation and expansion program.

[27] With the increase in activity at Pochentong airbase, the AVNK Air Academy (École de l'Air; formerly, the Royal Flying School) was moved in August 1970 to more quieter and less congested facilities at Battambang airfield.

The director of the Air Academy, Lieutenant colonel Norodom Vatvani organized a road convoy to transport all the technical equipment whilst the instructor pilots flew the Gardan GY-80 Horizons to the new airfield, although the Cessna T-37B Tweet jet trainers were left behind at Pochentong.

In addition, South Vietnamese O-1D Bird Dog Forward air controllers began regularly staging reconnaissance flights from Pochentong to guide RVNAF airstrikes and artillery fire.

[31] The RVNAF assigned a 49-man contingent of pilots and ground technicians to Pochentong to help fly and maintain these airframes until AVNK personnel had completed their instruction cycle manned by US advisors in South Vietnam.

Among the most effective additions were two Douglas AC-47D Spooky gunships turned over to Cambodia in June 1971, which were initially used for night surveillance and defense operations at Pochentong Airbase, in order to deter further PAVN sapper attacks.

[38][39][40] Nationalist Chinese advisors and engineers from Taiwan also assisted the KAF ground technicians at Pochentong in the rebuilding of former AVNK airframes damaged in the January raid, enabling some transport planes and helicopters to be repaired and returned quickly to flying condition.

[48][49][43] Despite the slow improvements delivered by Brigadier General So Satto's expansion program, the KAF's own combat capabilities remained low and because of plentiful U.S. air support provided by Operation Freedom Deal – used excessively by the Cambodian Army – was relegated to a minor role only.

[67] By April 1975, KAF Security troops totalled some 1,600 airmen organized in six light infantry battalions, equipped with an assortment of outdated and modern U.S. and captured Soviet or Chinese small-arms.

[39][43] The AU-24A was beset with a long list of technical faults, which became painfully clear on August 10, 1973, after a Stallion crashed on a rocket pass, killing its crew and forced the KAF Command to ground temporarily the entire mini-gunship fleet.

The 1st Fighter Squadron was regarded with deep distrust by both the FANK High Command and the Republican government, after some dissident pilots from that squadron tried unsuccessfully to assassinate top military and political officials (including President Lon Nol) on at least three separate occasions: The Khmer Air Force saw its aerial resupply capability severely curtailed late in the war, when on March 13, 1975, the Khmer Rouge hit Pochentong Airbase with Chinese-made Type 63 107mm rockets, which ignited an ammunition dump and destroyed a nearby storehouse used to pack and store air-drop cargo parachutes employed on resupply operations.

The loss of their cargo parachute stocks deprived the KAF's C-47 and C-123K transports of the means to adequately support the isolated enclaves still held by Cambodian Army units, so the U.S. government had to hire civilian contractors in order to carry out most of the outpost resupply drops within Cambodia.

Most of the T-28D pilots involved in this operation were forced to land their planes in the main road leading to Pochentong's civilian airport and adjacent to the military airbase, since the latter's airstrip was under heavy artillery fire.

[85] The Air Force command also kept on stand-by seven UH-1H transport helicopters at an improvised helipad mounted on the grounds of the Phnom Penh Olympic Stadium in the Cércle Sportive complex, ready to evacuate key members of the government.

[53][88] The rest of the KAF personnel that remained in Cambodia – including the male and female clerical staff, the ground technicians, some pilots, and those airmen serving on the 1st Air Fusiliers Regiment at Pochentong (who defended the Airbase until the very end)[89] – had no choice but to surrender, with most of them being executed by the Khmer Rouge.

[85][91] Of the twelve T-28D Trojans operated by the Khmer Rouge's AFKRA at Ream Airbase, at least five were destroyed on the ground along with two C-47 and one C-46F transport aircraft when U.S. Air Force AC-130 gunships and U.S. Navy A-6A Intruder and A-7E Corsair II attack jets bombed the facility during the Mayaguez incident on May 15, 1975.

[92][93][94] As for the other airframes, lack of trained pilots, poor maintenance and a chronic shortage of spare parts ensured that only a handful of these were still airworthy when the AFKRA was neutralized by the PAVN in February 1979 during the Cambodian–Vietnamese War.

Upon its formation in 1954, AVRK personnel received the French Army's M1945 tropical working and service dress (Tenue de toile kaki clair Mle 1945), standard issue in the ARK, consisting of a light khaki cotton shirt and pants.

A light blue-grey working uniform, consisting of a shirt and pants whose cut followed that of the earlier M1945 tropical dress, was also adopted for all-ranks[97] though AVRK ground personnel in the field often wore the standard ARK French all-arms M1947 drab green fatigues (Treillis de combat Mle 1947).

[103] Besides regulation headgear, unofficial Olive Green and camouflage baseball caps (black or red embroidered versions were adopted by some Cambodian pilots who attended advanced courses abroad)[104] and U.S. Boonie hats found their way into the KAF from the United States, Thailand and South Vietnam, to which were soon added Cambodian-made copies.

[102] In 1972, some KAF officers began wearing on their flight suits or OG jungle fatigues metal pin-on collar rank insignia identical to the pattern adopted that same year by their Army counterparts.

Fighter-bomber pilots wore on the back of their flight suits a "blood-chit" patterned after the Cambodian national flag, inscribed with a plea for the bearer to be treated has a Prisoner of war (POW) according to international agreements in Khmer script, with Vietnamese and Chinese translations also included.