The gleaming Mi-17s come with VIP cabins, comfortable sofas, large leather armchairs, satellite telephones and flat screen TVs. Their crew and mechanics are Afghans, but the instructors are American.

Also under cover are about 30 other aircraft. This is the Afghan National Air Corps, the embryo of the country's future air force.

The helicopters are a symbol of the rebirth of a force that had its moment of glory at the time of the Soviet occupation in the 1980s.

The country then had several hundred military aircraft -- transport and attack helicopters, fighter jets, bombers -- enough air power to worry its neighbours.

But the retreat of the Soviets was the death knell of this force, quickly reduced to a handful of aircraft left in the hands of the anti-Soviet Northern Alliance under the late Ahmad Shah Massoud and the Taliban.

The last craft were destroyed in the US offensive launched in October 2001 against the Taliban regime, following the September 11 attacks on the United States.

In a few weeks, however, the Afghan Air Corps is due to move into a new base built by the United States on the other side of the runway -- the north of the airport.

The cost is 183 million dollars, a bill that reflects the scale of the plan.

"Basically, it's a self-contained city that we are building here," said one US officer.

The 1,300 or so residents of the base will benefit from modern installations: barracks, an Mi-17 flight simulator, hospital, post office, electric generators and a conference centre.

Still empty, two gigantic hangars -- designed to American standards and to resist seismic activity -- will accommodate the aircraft of the Afghan National Army, the interior ministry and the presidency.

As Moscow once did, Washington provides everything and looks after everything. The Afghan pilots are trained here and abroad -- in Ukraine and the United States.

A number of them are pure products of the Soviet flying school, hence the decision to initially put them in aircraft from the ex-Soviet bloc.

"They are very well trained," said the instructor of the presidential flying team, Captain Nick Noreus.

"I have been training them like Westerners. So they're able to navigate with a map, talk on the radio," he said.

"They would have no problem flying in a US formation. They use Western style flying. They are good pilots. They have been flying since the Russian times."

For the time being, the Afghan Air Corps has 17 MI-17 transport helicopters and three MI-35 attack helicopters as well as six Antonov transport planes.

From now until 2011, this fleet is expected to grow to 49 Mi-17 and 18 Italian C-27A transport planes, which will replace the Antonovs.

So as not to be relegated to troop transportation and medical evacuation, the Afghan air force should receive between now and 2012-2013 small combat planes with single motors and propellers capable of carrying rockets and bombs.

In the meantime, and as a souvenir of its glorious past, the force has to be content with two L-39, Czech-made training jets that are unarmed and fly only on military parades.

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