The Jungla is likely the most advanced anti-trafficking force in the world. All photos by author.
Welcome to F-AIR, Colombia's bi-annual military air show, a place where Limp Bizkit is still used as pump up music, Canada has the biggest plane, and kids can pretend to shoot grenade launchers at drug traffickers.
With roughly three decades of civil war and armed conflict with guerrilla fighters and drug cartels, Colombia's military is one of the most advanced in Latin America. The country has nearly 850,000 soldiers in a country with 47 million people, along with 280 active aircraft. The national police have another 100 aircraft, many of which are used to track down drug cartels, which have taken over much of the eastern and western parts of the country.
No matter what country you're in, nothing says "military might" like a bad-ass eagle.
Much of that firepower was on display at F-AIR. Part air show, part demonstration of military badassery, and part trade show for heavy hitters like Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, and Israel Aerospace Industries, the fair is held at the Jose Maria Cordova International Airport, located about 40 minutes outside Medellin. It brings in reps from 10 mostly Latin American (Canada, Israel, and the United States being the exceptions) countries for four days.
The fair brought in more than 15,000 visitors Sunday, and a couple thousand each day before that. Besides your normal air show stunt demonstrations, walkthroughs of helicopters and old school bombers, and copious amounts of overpriced food, the show also featured a booth manned by the Colombian national police's "Jungla" special command unit.
Formed with the help of the United States in 1989 (and affiliated with the Colombian national police), the Jungla anti narcotics force is the best of the best: They're often tasked with capturing high-level cartel leaders, destroying cocaine laboratories, and fighting through rough terrain.
Groups like the Jungla have—at least according to official numbers—helped slightly curb the amount of land taken up by coca production in the country in the last few years, but coca farms still take up roughly 100,000 hectares of the country and is still grown in most regions by paramilitary groups and drug cartels.
"Hey dad, all I want for Christmas is to gun down a drug trafficker."
A 2008 US State Department cable said the Jungla's roughly 600 officers are "widely considered to be among the finest Special Forces units in Latin America."
"The high degree of self-reliance and superb Jungla training regimen make the Junglas one of the Embassy's most effective and nationalized programs," it said.
They sure have the firepower for it: At F-AIR, the Jungla had all sorts of weapons you could try on, including pump-action shotguns, grenade launchers (both mounted and wearable), machine guns, sniper rifles, and mortar launchers. It was easily one of the most popular attractions at the fair, with hundreds of kids coming in to put on sniper camo and point shotguns at their parents.
Off to the side, the Jungla had various strains of coca plants (Bolivian Black, Bitter, Little Bird) and poppy (heroin is increasingly being manufactured in Colombia) on display.
Inside a covered exhibition area a couple hundred feet away, you could hop inside a helicopter gunner simulator, which rocked back and forth and made semi-realistic gunshot sounds. Nearby, General Atomics advertised its new exportable, unarmed Predator drone, which it hopes to begin selling to Latin America. Lockheed Martin was trying to sell Colombia on its F-16s, and Israeli companies, which dominate the global drone market, were showing off their unmanned aircraft.
Be honest: Could you say no to taking a rotary cannon for a spin?
Besides the Jungla tent, attendees could hop inside smaller helicopters used to monitor drug cartels, walk through a giant Canadian tanker plane, and pose for pictures near dozens of other Colombian and foreign planes.
The place was packed, and with good reason: Planes are awesome.
Overhead, paratroopers jumped from Colombian jets, Israeli and American fighter jets vied for superiority with the crowd (the crowd seemed more impressed with Israel's, for what it's worth), and old, uncensored Dr. Dre and the aforementioned Limp Bizkit blasted away. The War on Drugs is big business, and while the vast majority of the thousands of attendees wouldn't be purchasing an attack helicopter for personal use, it can't hurt to get everyone's inner Ramber stoked on the defense industry.