After being confronted by British air power during several conflicts in the 1920s, Imam Yahya, the King of Yemen, sought support from Italy in order to acquire aircraft for his country.

This, along with language issues and renewed fighting with the British, caused Imam Yahya to stop the efforts to establish an air force.

[1] This changed in the late 1940s, when several aircraft were bought from different sources: a single Amiot AAC-1 Toucan was purchased from Lebanon, as well as one Noorduyn Norseman from Egypt, and two Douglas C-47s from Italy.

Together with four MiG-17Fs, two Il-28s, two Il-14s and some Yakovlev Yak-11s donated by the Egyptians when they withdrew, and the remaining Zlin Z-126s, these aircraft constituted the whole fleet of the newly created air force as of late 1967.

[9] On 1 December of the same year, the country was renamed the People's Democratic Republic of Yemen (PDRY), and the air force's name was changed accordingly.

[10] It was in this period that the triangular roundel was replaced by a circular one, consisting of the three colors of the national flag, with the top quarter being a sky-blue chevron with a red star in the middle.

[9] The PDRYAF participated in the short Yemenite War of 1972, flying transport missions in support of the ground units, and air strikes with its MiG-17 fighters.

[12] The North Yemeni air force isn't known to have been involved in the conflict, even though it received five MiG-17s and four Ilyushin Il-28s donated by Egypt and flown by Egyptian pilots midway through the war.

Another contingent followed in early January 1978, including some MiG-21 pilots; one of them was killed when his aircraft, a MiG-21MF donated to Ethiopia by the USSR, was shot down by Somalian air defences on 15 February.

On 28 February, the Southerners launched an invasion of North Yemen, and their air force bombed the Taiz airfield, and claimed to have destroyed up to six aircraft.

The United States delivered F-5E fighters and two Lockheed C-130H Hercules transport aircraft, while Saudi Arabia transferred four of its own F-5Bs to the YARAF.

Saudi financial aid also enabled North Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh to order new weapons from the Soviet Union.

[17] This rapid expansion of the YARAF meant that foreign advisors were necessary to support its operations: while the Soviets helped with Soviet-built types, Taiwanese pilots and ground crews constituted the majority of the F-5 squadron's personnel until 1985, and they only left the country in 1991, after the unification.

[21] This period was brought to an abrupt end in January 1986, when a coup resulted in an 11-day civil war, colloquially known in Yemen as The Events.

This short civil war resulted in the destruction of around 75% of the air force, while dozens of thousands of people fled to the North, including up to 40 PDRYAF pilots.

[22] Even though the Soviet Union subsequently delivered additional MiG-21bis, Mil Mi-25 helicopters, and a batch of between 12 and 14 Sukhoi Su-22M-4Ks, rebuilding the South Yemeni military to pre-1986 strength proved impossible.

[24] Even though the PDRYAF had been considerably weakened by the 1986 civil war, its commanders still assessed it as superior to its northern counterpart, and expected it to establish air dominance.

However, the PDRYAF kept on trying, and its Su-22 units performed several additional long-range bombing missions through the war, achieving notable results.

Dozens of PDRYAF members fled to Djibouti, Oman, and even the United Arab Emirates with their aircraft, while others fought to the bitter end.

[27] While the unified air force took on the remaining aircraft of the former PDRYAF, including around a dozen each of MiG-21s and Su-22s, several MiG-29s, and some Mi-8s, Mi-17s and Mi-14s, it almost only consisted of the former YARAF.

[28] Even though the appearance of MiG-29s in Yemen in 1994 did not have much of an impact on the air war, the type left an impression on Ali Abdullah Saleh's government.

After Ali Abdullah Saleh declared his support for George Bush in the war on terror, America provided Yemen with military aid.

The US trained them in providing close air support for Yemeni Special Forces fighting against Al Qaeda.

On 30 October, the al-Dailami air base, which shares the structures with Sana'a International Airport, was attacked by uprising forces.

Different official sources reported two or three fighter jets destroyed on the ground either by mortar shells or with planted explosive charges.

As the Sukhois made their first bombing run the Hadi loyalists responded with fierce ground fire but failed to shoot down any aircraft.

During this attack, a few pro-Hadi MiG-29s scrambled from Al Anad Air Base to protect the presidential compound from Houthi -controlled warplanes.

[35] The Yemeni Air Force did not completely join the Houthi rebels, as most of the personnel refused to take orders from their former enemy.

Also the maintenance of the air-frames was mostly halted since the ousting of the Saleh regime in 2012[36][37] and thus, at the beginning of 2015, the situation of the Air Force seemed chaotic with most of the personnel deserted and air-frames lacking maintenance, effectively preventing the Yemeni Air Force to enter in the fight, remaining grounded during the Saudi-led intervention.

On 15 April 2015, a Saudi debriefing showed the Arab coalition strikers destroying two Su-22 and one F-5 jet fighters while they were sitting on the tarmac.