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The Peace Keeping Force in Congo The past 75 years have been an eventful journey for the Indian Air Force (IAF) … from a flight of 'Wapitis' in 1932, to the fourth largest, professionally acclaimed, strategic Air Force responsible for guarding Nation's vital interests. From 1948 to Kargil, the IAF has always fielded winning capabilities. IAF's professional and prompt operations in peace time, at home and abroad and in peacekeeping, have earned many accolades. In recent years, IAF has enhanced cooperation with Air Forces of other countries and exercised with some of the best, to hone skills, assimilate ‘best practices’ and strengthen ties of friendship all over the World. Today, the IAF has formal cooperation with six nations and exchanges with many others. There are IAF teams and missions in 10 countries and four widely appreciated UN missions in Congo and Sudan. To remain competitive and credible, it is imperative that the IAF imbibe modern technologies to achieve long-reach, precision, networked and space-enabled force capabilities. The changing global environment, Regional military capabilities and vital national interests, necessitate a transformational modernization. |
The Indian Air Force was officially established on 8 October 1932.Its first ac flight came into being on 01 Apr 1933. It possessed a strength of six RAF-trained officers and 19 Havai Sepoys (literally, air soldiers). The aircraft inventory comprised of four Westland Wapiti IIA army co-operation biplanes at Drigh Road as the "A" Flight nucleus of the planned No.1 (Army Co- operation) Squadron. During World War II, the IAF played an instrumental role in thwarting the advance of the Japanese army in Burma, where its first air strike was on the Japanese military base in Arakan. It also carried out strike missions against the Japanese airbases at Mae Hong Son, Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai in northern Thailand. With the partition of the Indian sub-continent into two separate nations, the Union of India and the Dominion of Pakistan, the military forces were also partitioned. This gave a reduced Royal Indian Air Force and a new Royal Pakistan Air Force in 1947.
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There are five operational air commands, the Western Air Command with headquarters in Delhi being the prime one and responsible for air operations from Kashmir southwards to Rajasthan and including the capital and the Punjab, with an Operations Group dedicated for Jammu & Kashmir including Ladakh.
Central Air Command based at Allahabad, encompasses most of the Indo-Gangetic plain while Eastern Air Command, at Shillong, is responsible for Bengal, Assam, the eastern states of Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya, Mizoram and the others bordering area on Tibet, Bangladesh and Burma.
South Western Air Command, at Jodhpur, is responsible for air operations in most of Rajasthan, southwards through Gujrarat to Saurashtra and the Kutch area.
Southern Air Command was formed in July 1984 with headquarters at Trivandrum and has, geographically, the largest territory, from the Deccan plateau area to the southern tip of the peninsula and including the island territories of Lakshwadeep and the Andaman & Nicobar Islands.
Training Command has its headquarters at Bangalore, with the majority of flying and ground training establishments located in Southern India. Maintenance Command operates from Nagpur in Central India. The five Operational Commands through administrative Wings, control some 45 fixed-wing squadrons, 20 helicopter units and numerous surface -to- air missile squadrons, with unit establishments varying from 12 to 18 aircraft. This represents a total aircraft strength of nearly 1,700 including training and support types, manned by some 120,000 personnel. The Indian Air Force is today the world's fourth largest, well-equipped and professionally trained, smartly efficient and with an elan second to none.
Tejas, India's very own Light Combat Aircraft has achieved an important milestone by gaining Initial Operational Clearance (IOC). This has authenticated the Indian aircraft's airworthiness. The birth of India's first fighter aircraft is thus certified. Tejas is part of Indian presence in Aero Show 2011.
The Defence Minister A K Antony was proud to say that IOC to Tejas is a momentous occasion that the nation has been waiting for towards building our own multi-role combat aircraft. He Pointed out that a state-of-the-art indigenous combat aircraft would go a long way in enhancing national security and the pride of the nation. The Defence Minister noted that the country was poised for a major turning point with the declaration of IOC of Tejas. This is for the first time an indigenously designed and developed military fighter aircraft has been certified for Indian Air Force.
India amid challenging neighborhood, already participated in four wars with Pakistan, including one undeclared war and one war with China since the partition in 1947, as well as many border skirmishes and military stand-offs. Additionally, India has accused Pakistan of engaging in proxy wars by providing military and financial assistance to violent non-state actors. So India is pulling all it's resources to update and to equip it's defence forces with the Modern warfare. India is following a two prong approach, buying from the world players through defence deals with various countries and producing in-house by developing the skill bank and industry. The indiginizing effort now a days gained good momentum even though not up to the required extent. LCA tejas , Kaveri Engine , Medium Combat Air Crafts etc. are at various stages of development.
In th urge to develop advance technology in-house , India has moved a step closer to developing it's own Airborne Early Warning and Control System
Date: 4 Mar 2012 , Author: dilip / Category: India Defence / Views: 588/Rating:5
Indigenously developed micro-light and pilot-less target aircraft Lakshya-1 was successfully test flown from the Integrated Test Range at Chandipur near Balasore on Tuesday.
'Lakshya-1, fitted with an advanced digitally controlled engine was successfully test flown at about 11.40 AM to check the validity of its engine and duration enhancement, defence sources said."It is a routine trial by the users," the sources said.
Date: 28 Feb 2012 , Author: dilip / Category: India Defence / Views: 372/Rating:3.4
Indigenously designed and developed RUSTOM-1 made 5th successful Flight on 11th November, while flying at an altitude of 2300 ft AGL (above ground level) & at a speed 100 Knots during 25 minute of cruise near Hosur. It may be noted that this Medium Altitude Long Endurance Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (MALE - UAV) is developed by DRDO with Aeronautical Development Establishment (ADE) Bangalore as the nodal laboratory. It had its maiden flight in 2010.
Date: 21 Nov 2011 , Author: dilip / Category: India Defence / Views: 728/Rating:4
India today successfully test fired the most advanced long range missile system Agni-4 today(15th november,2011). The missile was launched from a Road Mobile System at 9.00 AM from Wheelers’ Island off the coast of Odisha. The missile followed its trajectory with a range of more than 3000 Kms, in a text book fashion, attained a height of about 900 kms and reached the pre-designated target in the international waters of Bay of Bengal. All mission objectives were fully met. All the systems functioned perfectly till the end encountering the re-entry temperatures of more than 3000⁰C.
Date: 15 Nov 2011 , Author: dilip / Category: India Defence / Views: 1520/Rating:4.9
DRDO Developed Agni II, the pride of India’s strategic arsenal was once again launched successfully this morning at 9:30 hrs from the Wheeler Island off the coast of Orissa. The launch was a hattrick after successful launches of Shourya and Prithivi-II, on 24th and 26th September, 2011 respectively. The successful launch once again proved reliability of the Medium Range Surface-to-Surface Missile...
Date: 30 Sep 2011 , Author: dilip / Category: India Defence / Views: 456/Rating:5
Within a span of two days, India demonstrated the reliability of two surface-to-surface missiles by successfully test-firing nuclear-weapons capable Shaurya and Prithvi-II ballistic systems on saturday(24th september) and Monday(26th september).
Shaurya, a nuclear-capable surface-to-surface medium range missile, was test-fired from Chandipur-on-sea off the Orissa coast at 2.30 PM on Saturday. The missile with a maximum range of 750 km was test-fired from an underground silo at Integrated Test Range of the Defence Research and Development Organization (DRDO)...
Date: 26 Sep 2011 , Author: dilip / Category: India Defence / Views: 539/Rating:0
Tejas (LCA) , India's very own Light Combat Aircraft has achieved an important milestone by gaining Initial Operational Clearance (IOC) in December 2010 . This has authenticated the Indian aircraft's airworthiness. The birth of India's first fighter aircraft is thus certified. So far, 1,659 flight tests have been completed.
LCA, Tejas Phase-ll Programme (Air Force version) was sanctioned in November 2001 at a cost`of Rs.3301.78 Cr. with Probable Date of Completion (PDC) of December 2008. The project is likely to be completed by December 2012 with an additional cost of Rs.2475.78 Cr. The additional cost is to meet the expanded scope of the programme, increased cost of materials, manpower, maintenance of facilities, etc.
Indian Air Force has ordered 40 Tejas Mk-I aircraft (20 aircraft in IOC and 20 aircraft in FOC standard). Two aircraft will be ready by March 2012 for induction.
Date: 31 Aug 2011 , Author: dilip / Category: India Defence / Views: 2480/Rating:3.8
As part of its endeavour to create a shield against incoming enemy missiles,the indigenous interceptor was fired from Wheeler Island off the Orissa coast near Dhamra in Bhadrak district.
"Aimed at developing a full fledged multi-layer Ballistic Missile Defence (BMD) system, the trial was carried out from two launch sites of ITR off Orissa coast," defence sources said.
Date: 6 Mar 2011 , Author: dilip / Category: India Defence / Views: 780/Rating:5 / Comments:
Two nuclear-capable, surface-to-surface Prithvi-II missiles were successfully test-fired within a span of an hour by personnel of the Strategic Force Command from the Integrated Test Range, Chandipur today.
Date: 22 Dec 2010 , Author: dilip / Category: India Defence / Views: 747/Rating:5
In a major victory for the army, an advanced version of BrahMos block-II was successfully tested from the integrated test range at Chandipur off Orissa coast on 5th September(sunday) .. The highlight of the mission was the missile performing a steep dive at a supersonic speed.This is the first time in the world that a supersonic steep dive manoeuvre has been realised by a cruise missile said the military sources .
Date: 6 Sep 2010 , Author: dilip / Category: India Defence / Views: 952/Rating:0
Agni-II, the intermediate range surface-to-surface ballistic missile, one of the key weapon systems of India's nuclear deterrence programme, was successfully flight-tested from the Wheeler Island off the Orissa coast on Monday.
Date: 17 May 2010 , Author: dilip / Category: India Defence / Views: 1012/Rating:3
India got its own stealth warship on Thursday when the indigenously manufactured INS Shivalik was commissioned into the Navy by Defence Minister AK Antony in Mumbai on Thursday.
Date: 30 Apr 2010 , Author: dilip / Category: India Defence / Views: 1382/Rating:3.7 / Comments:
As the memories of Cold War of USSR and USA faded long back, to fill the void now comes the cold war of China and India.Though the intensity of this Cold War is much less than what it was between USA and USSR, but the under currents were strong enough.
Relations between the two countries have ranged from post-independence bonhomie to armed conflict in 1962 to a state of armed peace. Despite a shared Buddhist religious history and an established trade along the Silk Road, there was historically little political interaction between the two. China is spending 4.3 % and India some 2.5% of their GDP on Military. Both are making ICBM, IBRMs missiles. Recently India successfully launched Agni- III missile.
Date: 12 Feb 2010 , Author: dilip / Category: India Defence / Views: 1495/Rating:5
Indian scientists achieved a major milestone in missile technology when they successfully conducted the flight test of the Intermediate Range Ballistic Missile (IRBM) – AGNI III from the Wheeler Island, off the coast of Orissa on 7th feb...
Date: 10 Feb 2010 , Author: dilip / Category: India Defence / Views: 2116/Rating:4
Liberian girls and women should draw inspiration from the all-female Indian police unit serving with the United Nations Mission in Liberia (UNMIL) to join law enforcement agencies in the service of their own nation, the top UN official in the West African country said today.
Date: 22 Nov 2009 , Author: dilip / Category: India Defence / Views: 2228/Rating:3.7 / Comments:
n quick succession, India tested two advanced versions of the nuclear-capable Prithvi-II ballistic missile, with a strike range of 350-km, from the Chandipur interim test range off the Orissa coast on Monday.
Date: 14 Oct 2009 , Author: dilip / Category: India, India Defence / Views: 1543/Rating:0
Indian and Russian scientists are close to final development and testing of the air-launched version of the BrahMos supersonic cruise missile.
Date: 9 Aug 2009 , Author: dilip / Category: India Defence / Views: 2426/Rating:5
Arihant - India's First Indigenous nuclear subamarine plunges into sea.
Date: 5 Aug 2009 , Author: dilip / Category: India Defence / Views: 2224/Rating:3.3 / Comments:
India on Monday became the first country in South Asia to own an Airborne Early Warning and Control System (AWACS), called 'an eye in the sky', with the Israeli-made 'Phalcon' reaching Jamnagar airbase on the country's western coast on Monday morning.
Date: 27 May 2009 , Author: dilip / Category: India, India Defence / Views: 1069/Rating:5
Long-range Sukhoi fighter aircrafts have started flying again, nearly three weeks after they were confined to the hangars for checks following a crash.
Date: 26 May 2009 , Author: dilip / Category: India Defence / Views: 744/Rating:0
Brahmos All Set For Hypersonic 
Date: 21 Apr 2009 , Author: dilip / Category: India, India Defence / Views: 904/Rating:0
Indian Army has Given it's green signal telling that Brahmos is Ready to be fired
Date: 5 Apr 2009 , Author: dilip / Category: India, India Defence / Views: 1703/Rating:0
India is believed to have reached a 1.9 billion dollar deal with an Israeli company for the supply and joint development of medium-range surface-to-air missiles. The defence ministry is yet to officially confirm the deal, but sources in the department of defence research and development (DRDO) said it was likely to go ahead......
Date: 30 Mar 2009 , Author: dilip / Category: India Defence / Views: 858/Rating:5
India successfully test fired its BrahMos cruise missile, jointly developed with Russia, in Pokhran, said a spokesman for BrahMos Aerospace Pvt. Ltd.
Date: 29 Mar 2009 , Author: dilip / Category: India, India Defence / Views: 888/Rating:0
