In 1961 when Syria left the United Arab Republic, they were left with a very weak air force. Due to this, the Syrians had to order new combat aircraft, which resulted in the procurement of the Mig-21F-13 in June 1962. Once the aircraft had arrived and been integrated into the fleet, a problem became apparent. All of the unit commanders had been selected based on political associations and loyalty to superiors, instead of knowledge in air combat. Due to this, the newly established commanders were over-reliant on advice from about 30 Soviet advisors assigned to the Syrian Air Force to help them work with the new planes, and were generally ineffective. This era of power over knowledge, however, also meant a handful of pilots with powerful connections were able to disregard Soviet advisors and orders from their commanders.