China Corners 80 Per Cent Of African Air Forces' Trainer Aircraft Market

About 80 per cent of trainer aircraft fleet operated by African air forces is made in China.

Twenty-four variants of the Y-12 turbo-prop trainer aircraft produced by China Harbin Aircraft Manufacturing Corp are currently operated by several nations including Kenya, Ethiopia, Mauritania, Zambia, Uganda, Sudan, Namibia, Tanzania and Eritrea, Zhang Guangjian, general manager of International Aero Development, a subsidiary of the state-run Aviation Industry Corporation of China was quoted as saying during the Aviation Expo China held in Beijing last month by Want China Times Daily Thursday.

A training center and spare parts warehouse to provide technical support to those aircraft will be established under AVIC's service center in Kenya.

Hongdu Aviation Industry Corp, another subsidiary of AVIC, managed to sell six L-15 trainer jets to Zambia, followed by an order of 12 more L-15s by an unnamed African country during the 2013 Paris Air Show, very likely to be Tanzania. The China National Aero-Technology Import and Export Corp sold 35 variants of its Karakorum K-8 light attack and trainer aircraft to the air forces of Zimbabwe, Zambia, Ghana and Sudan.