North Korean leader Kim Jong Un celebrated the Aviation Day holiday this week by meeting pilots and promoting top air force personnel for their exploits during “unprecedented” large-scale flying drills last month, state media reported Thursday. 

Kim took a group photo with 705 pilots who specifically took part in drills on Nov. 4 that involved “500 fighters of different kinds,” according to the Rodong Sinmun, and commended the “ideological and spiritual superiority of the Air Force that can defeat any formidable enemy at one stroke.”