Colombia says goodbye to its Aerospace Force for a reason that could be applied in Spain

@DefAviation ES 3·16·2024 · 22:26 0

Colombia's military aviation has been involved in a situation that deserves to be described as surreal due to a bad political decision.

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Colombia's military aviation is one of the oldest air forces in Latin America. It was founded in 1919 with the name of Colombian Military Aviation, as the Fifth Arm of the Colombian National Army. On December 31, 1944, the Colombian Air Force (FAC) was formed as a separate branch of the Armed Forces, a few years before the creation of the United States Air Force (USAF, officially created on September 18, 1947).

Following in the footsteps of France and Spain, which added the term "and Space" to their respective Air Armies in recent years, the current president of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, decided to change the name of the FAC to encompass the space domain, after the FAC participated in several artificial satellite programs. In July of last year, Law 2302 of 2023 came into force, Article 5 of which established the new name of the FAC: Colombian Aerospace Force.

The problem with this change is that the Constitution of Colombia, in its Article 217, states the following: "The nation will have for its defense permanent military forces made up of the Army, the Navy and the Air Force." Thus, the new law had given a name to the FAC that did not correspond to that indicated in that constitutional article.

Because of this, this Thursday the Constitutional Court of Colombia has invalidated the name change of the FAC, pointing to the aforementioned Article 217 of the Constitution and warning: "the legislator has no margin of configuration to modify the above and, to do so, as happened in this case, violates the provisions of the aforementioned articleand, furthermore, the principle of supremacy of the Constitution."The decision of the The Court only invalidates Article 5 of the aforementioned law, so the powers of the Air Force do not change.

Thus, Colombia loses its Aerospace Force and recovers its Air Force, after a brief period of eight months in which changes had surely already been implemented in signs, letterheads and various documents. Its official Twitter account still shows the word "Aerospace", although the username was still previous. Fortunately, all Colombian Air Force aircraft carry the letters "FAC", valid for both designations. The name "Colombian Air Force" appears on larger aircraft and helicopters, but at the moment the now invalidated name had not been applied to any aircraft.

A Boeing C-40 in a photo published in October 2023. Until now, the new designation had not been applied to any FAC aircraft (Photo: Fuerza Aérea Colombiana).

The name change of the Spanish Air Force in 2022

In Spain there is a situation very similar to that of Colombia. On June 27, 2022, Pedro Sánchez's government changed the name of the Ejército del Aire (Air Army, literally) to the "Ejército del Aire y del Espacio" (Air and Space Army). The change was made by a Royal Decree. It was a very irregular change if we take into account that the name "Ejército del Aire" appears in Article 8.1 of the Spanish Constitution:

"The Armed Forces, made up of the Land Army, the Navy and the Air Army, have the mission of guaranteeing the sovereignty and independence of Spain, defending its territorial integrity and the constitutional order."

In fact, in 1978, with the approval of the Constitution, one of the three branches of the Armed Forces had to change its name: the Navy, since the aforementioned constitutional article cited it as the "Armada". This involved changing the signs on all Spanish naval aircraft, which until then said "Marina." Unlike Colombia, the Constitutional Court of Spain did not say anything.

In 2022 I already expressed my criticism of that name change here. For my part, as long as a reform of the aforementioned Article 8 of the Constitution is not approved, I will continue to cite the Air Force by the name it has had since 1940. A Royal Decree cannot modify a name that is given by the Constitution.

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Main photo: Christopher Ebdon. An IAI Kfir fighter of the Colombian Air Force.