were based at the FAC’s Comando Aéreo de
Combate No 1 (CACOM-1) at Palanquero,
where they arrived in a bare metal scheme.
The T-37C is an export-optimised basic jet
trainer and light attack aircraft, fitted with one
weapons pylon under each wing. In around
1972, some of these lightly armed Tweets were
deployed to Apiay air base (since designated
as CACOM-21), in Villavicencio, south of the
capital Bogotá. The T-37Cs at Apiay were used
to transition pilots to the Mirage 5. At the time,
student pilots arrived at Apiay having completed
basic flight training on the Beechcraft T-34
Mentor of the Escuela Militar de Aviación.
In 1977, the Colombian government
negotiated the acquisition of three additional
T-37s and they arrived in Colombia in a two-
tone white and blue colour scheme, similar tothat of the US Air Force Academy. The new
Tweets received the serials FAC 2115 to FAC- These additional jets were delivered
to the Grupo Aéreo del Norte (Northern
Air Group), today’s CACOM-3, which was
established at Barranquilla air base on the
Caribbean coast during the same year.
Nowadays, Barranquilla is the sole operating
base of the FAC’s A-37B Dragonfly – a
development of the T-37. The very first FAC
Dragonflies arrived from the US on December
15, 1978. The Dragonflies of Escuadrón de
Combate 311 were recently supplemented by
two fully refurbished A-37Bs bought by the FAC
from the Dominican Republic by mid-2017.
On December 22, 1979, in compliance
with orders from the Colombian Ministry of
National Defence, CACOM-1 deployed assets
Above: The Colombian Air Force operates a total
of 13 T-37s assigned to Escuadrón de Combate
116 ‘Tango’. All photos Cristobal Soto Pino and Cees-Jan
van der Ende
Left: Squadron commander Captain Cristian
‘Alacrán’ Cañon Castro at the controls of his
Tweet during a local early morning mission.
Below: Tweets FAC 2127 and FAC 2132 over
the village of La Dorada, located on Colombia’s
main river, the Río Magdalena. In this view, the
aircraft’s home base of Palanquero is immediately
below the bridge.
Tweets share the fl ight line with the J79-powered
IAI Kfi r at Palanquero where students may
fi nd themselves transferred to the latter after
completing their T-37 course.http://www.airforcesmonthly.com #363 JUNE 2018 // 77