Pashto Times

  Amir Amanullah Khan Of Afghanistan, Receiving Military Aircraft From The Soviet Union, 1924-25 (c). After the Russian Revolution, from 1919, the Soviet government gave military support to Afghanistan to support their resistance to the British. In 1924, the Soviet Union again gave military aid to Afghanistan, including small arms, aircraft and conducted training in Tashkent for cadre officers from the Afghan Army. Here Depicting Afghanistan's King Amanullah Khan in 1924 receiving aeroplanes from the Soviet Union, complete with pilots and mechanics, which became the foundation of the Afghan Air Force. For the next decade, Soviet pilots performed the bulk of the flying of Afghan aircraft, many of which were Polikarpov R-1s, a Soviet copy of the de Havilland DH.9A. Most Afghan aircraft were destroyed in the civil war that began in December 1928, and it was 1937 before a serious rebuilding effort began. Amanullah Khan Of Afghanistan, Receiving Military Aircraft From The Soviet Union