Brazilian military aviation began not in the Air Force - which did not yet exist - but in the Navy. On August 23, 1916, during the First World War, President Wenceslau Braz founded the Naval Aviation School. The Navy bought three Curtiss Model F seaplanes from the United States and began training officers to fly them. The Army waited until after the war. On July 10, 1919, the Army's Military Aviation School opened under Lieutenant Colonel Stanislau Vieira Pamplona, equipped with French Nieuports and Spad 84 Herbermonts left over from the Western Front. For more than two decades, military aviation was split between the two services. Major Augusto Lysias Rodrigues, one of the early Brazilian military aviators, advocated for an independent Air Force - but his idea only took hold at the outbreak of the Second World War. On January 20, 1941, Federal Decree 2961 established the Ministry of Aeronautics. The Naval and Army aviation schools were absorbed into a new School of Aeronautics at Afonsos Air Force Base in Rio de Janeiro.

Afonsos was cramped - good for a school, bad for growth. On January 23, 1942, during the war itself, an official commission was formed to find a new site. Campinas, Pirassununga, Rio Claro, and Ribeirao Preto were shortlisted, all in Sao Paulo state. Pirassununga won on topography - a flat plateau east of town called the Upper Field, ideal for runways and hangars. Construction on the first hangars began in 1942 but progress was slow. A new commission was named in 1949, another in 1956, each revising the project. The Precursor Aeronautical Detachment opened ceremonially on October 17, 1960, during Wing Week, with the Minister of Aeronautics and the Governor of Sao Paulo on hand. The facilities were modest - two hangars, grass runways, borrowed offices. The first T-37C jets arrived in 1968, marking a new era. On July 10, 1969, the School of Aeronautics was formally renamed Academia da Forca Aerea. In 1971, the Academy completed its definitive move from Afonsos to Pirassununga under Air Brigadier Geraldo Labarthe Lebre.

The Academy offers three officer formation courses: Aviator, Quartermaster, and Infantry. All three are four-year boarding programs; all three graduates earn a bachelor's degree in Public Administration recognized by the Ministry of Education. Cadets live by the five pillars of the Air Force Code of Honor: Courage, Loyalty, Honor, Duty, Patriotism. The Quartermasters handle logistics - food, fuel, uniforms, finance, parachute packing, even the grim duties of burial services on campaign. They are called the Queen of Logistics in Brazilian military slang. The Infantry officers handle base security and ground operations. The Aviators - a small elite among the cadets - are the only ones who fly. Their curriculum includes aerodynamics, jet propulsion, air navigation, aerospace medicine, and meteorology, on top of the administration courses everyone takes. Across all three tracks, applied math, physics, chemistry, multiple languages, psychology, and law round out the academic program.

The second year is when the washouts happen. Cadets join the 2nd Aerial Instruction Squadron - Apolo - and begin flying the T-25 Universal, a Brazilian-built piston trainer. The theory alone demands 90 percent marks on final exams or cadets lose their place in aviation. Those who make it accumulate about 50 flight hours by year's end. Fourth year brings the 1st Aerial Instruction Squadron - Cometa - and the Embraer T-27 Tucano, a turboprop that offers 120 hours of flight time over the year. Cadets learn barrel rolls, loops, Immelmanns, Chandelles, Cuban eights, four-ship formations, IFR navigation, night flying. At the end of the year, the top 30 pilots go to the Fighter Pilot Course; the rest are distributed to helicopter or multi-engine tracks. The Academy is also home to the Esquadrilha da Fumaca, the Smoke Squadron, Brazil's aerobatic demonstration team, which flies the A-29 Super Tucano and performs at airshows around the world. Cadets who want extra stick time can join the Clube de Voo a Vela - the Sailing Flight Club, founded at AFA in 1976 - and fly Schleicher ASW 20s on weekends. Some of them do it to survive the second year.