The Indian Air Force (IAF) is the air arm of the Indian Armed Forces. Its primary mission is to secure Indian airspace and to conduct aerial warfare during armed conflicts. It was officially established on 8 October 1932 as an auxiliary air force of the British Empire which honoured India's aviation service during World War II with the prefix Royal. After India gained independence from United Kingdom in 1947, the name Royal Indian Air Force was kept and served in the name of the Dominion of India. With the transition to a republic in 1950, the prefix Royal was removed.
Surya Kiran is an aerobatics demonstration team of the Indian Air Force. The Surya Kiran Aerobatic Team (SKAT) was formed in 1996 and is a part of the No. 52 Squadron of the Indian Air Force. The team is based at Bidar Air Force Station in Karnataka and has performed numerous demonstrations. The squadron was initially composed of the HAL HJT-16 Kiran Mk.2 trainer aircraft. The team was suspended in February 2011 and was re-established with BAE Hawk Mk.132 aircraft in 2015.
The Antonov An-32 is a turboprop twin-engined military transport aircraft. Its first flight was in July 1976 and displayed at the 1977 Paris Air Show. It is oriented towards flying in adverse weather conditions, and was produced from 1980 to 2012, and remains in service. It was developed from the An-24, and the An-26 is related.
The Atlantique incident occurred on 10 August 1999, when a Breguet Atlantic maritime patrol aircraft of the Pakistan Naval Air Arm was shot down by a MiG-21 fighter of the Indian Air Force over the Rann of Kutch, on the border between India and Pakistan. Sixteen Pakistani personnel including the pilots were killed as a result. The episode took place just a month after the Kargil War ended, aggravating already tense relations between the two countries.
Lady Be Good is a B-24D Liberator bomber that disappeared without a trace on its first combat mission during World War II. The plane, which was from 376th Bomb Group of the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF), was believed to have been lost—with its nine-man crew—in the Mediterranean Sea while returning to its base in Libya following a bombing raid on Naples on April 4, 1943. However, the wreck was accidentally discovered 710 km (440 mi) inland in the Libyan Desert by an oil exploration team from British Petroleum on November 9, 1958. A ground party in March 1959 later identified the aircraft as a B-24D.
The Royal Indian Air Force (RIAF) was the aerial force of British India and later the Dominion of India. Along with the Indian Army, and Royal Indian Navy, it was one of the Armed Forces of British Indian Empire.
Air Marshal Aspy Merwan Engineer DFC was an officer in the Indian Air Force who rose through the ranks to become independent India's second Chief of the Air Staff, succeeding Subroto Mukerjee in 1960 and preceding Arjan Singh.
On 3 May 2002, an Indian Air Force (IAF) Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-21bis crashed into an office building in Jalandhar, Punjab, India, killing eight and injuring 17 people on the ground. The pilot, who ejected from the aircraft, survived. A number of passers-by were also injured as they attempted to rescue people trapped in the buildings.
During the Indo-Pakistani war of 1965, the Indian and Pakistani Air Forces engaged in large-scale aerial combat for the first time. In the air war, which took place in September, both air forces conducted thousands of defensive and offensive sorties over Indian and Pakistani airspace. Both India and Pakistan claimed victory in the air war; Pakistan claimed to have destroyed 104 Indian aircraft and lost 19, and India claimed to have destroyed 73 Pakistani aircraft and lost 35 of its own. The air war ended in a stalemate.
Thoise or Thoise Air Force Station is a military airfield and small village in Nubra region of Ladakh, India, occupying the only large piece of flat land in the area. The airstrip is a critical facility enabling a quick inflow of men and material from the Indian interior to Siachen, a glacier, helipad and battleground near the Actual Ground Position Line between India and Pakistan.
Air Force Station Hindon is an Indian Air Force base under the Western Air Command (WAC). It is the biggest and largest air base in Asia. Its area measured 14 km rounded and 10.25 square kilometres (3.96 sq mi). This base celebrates Air Force Day on 8 October. It is located near Loni Ghaziabad in the state of Uttar Pradesh in the National Capital Region on the outskirts of Delhi, close to the Hindon River. Starting 2006, the annual Air Force Day Parade venue was shifted from Palam Airport to Hindon. There is one runway, aligned east–west (09-27), of 9,000 feet (2,700 m) length x 150 feet (46 m) width. The military airbase serves as the home of the IAF C-17 Globemaster and the IAF C-130J Super Hercules, the backbone of Strategic Heavy Air Lift division of the Indian Air Force. The Airports Authority of India (AAI) operates a civil enclave at Hindon as part of the government's Regional Connectivity Scheme (RCS).
The Indian Air Force Test Pilot School is a unit of the Indian Air Force (IAF) that evaluates aircraft and systems for induction into user organisations. Most new aircraft types and major airborne systems must have ASTE's stamp of approval to be considered fit for service in India. While many countries have testing facilities of one kind or the other, training of flight test personnel is not often imparted in them. ASTE's Air Force Test Pilots School (AFTPS) is only the fifth such institution in the world.
No. 26 Squadron IAF (Warriors) is the Ground Attack and Close Air Support unit of the Indian Air Force, operating from Pathankot Air Force Station under India's Western Air Command. The squadron was number plated on an unspecified date.
Flying Officer Dinshaw Ferozeshaw Eduljee, AFC was a former officer of the Indian Air Force (IAF). He was the first pilot of the IAF to receive the Air Force Cross, on 1 June 1944. Eduljee is presumed to have died after the Hurricane fighter aircraft he was flying crashed in action behind Japanese lines in Burma. The circumstances and time of his death are not known.
Squadron Leader Ajjamada Boppayya Devayya MVC is the only Indian Air Force officer to be posthumously awarded the Maha Vir Chakra (MVC). The Maha Vir Chakra is the second highest wartime gallantry award, below only to the Param Vir Chakra. During the 1965 India-Pakistan War, Devayya was part of a strike mission targeting the Pakistani airbase Sargodha when he was attacked by an enemy aircraft. He shot down the enemy pursuer's plane but in the process his aircraft was damaged and he went missing. Presumably he died in Pakistani territory. Twenty-three years later, in 1988, he was posthumously awarded the MVC award.
Air Chief Marshal Hrushikesh Moolgavkar, PVSM, MVC was a former Air officer in the Indian Air Force. He served as the 9th Chief of the Air Staff of the Indian Air Force from 1 February 1976 to 31 August 1978.
No. 45 Squadron Indian Air Force is a Fighter Squadron internally based at Sulur AFS, Tamil Nadu. The squadron operates the indigenous HAL Tejas fighter from 1 July 2016. The squadron was initially based at Bangalore, Karnataka and later shifted to its main base in Sulur from 1 June 2018.
On 22 July 2016, an Antonov An-32 twin engine turboprop transport aircraft of the Indian Air Force crashed while flying over the Bay of Bengal. The aircraft was en route from Tambaram Air Force Station in the city of Chennai on the western coastline of the Bay of Bengal to Port Blair in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. There were 29 people on board. Radar contact with the aircraft was lost at 9:12 am, 280 kilometres (170 mi) east of Chennai. No trace of the aircraft was found in the immediate aftermath. The search and rescue operation became India's largest search operation ever for a missing plane on the sea. In January 2024, wreckage discovered off the coast of Chennai was confirmed as belonging to the ill-fated aircraft, indicating it crashed into the sea with no survivors.
On 3 June 2019, an Antonov An-32 twin engine turboprop transport aircraft of the Indian Air Force en route from Jorhat Airport in Assam to Mechuka in Arunachal Pradesh lost contact with ground control about 33 minutes after takeoff. There were 13 people on board. After a week-long search operation, the wreckage with no survivors was found near Pari hills close to Gatte village in Arunachal Pradesh at the elevation of 12,000 feet (3,700 m).
Air Vice Marshal Harjinder Singh, PVSM, MBE was an Air Officer in the Indian Air Force. He was one of the earliest to join the newly created Indian Air Force (IAF) in 1933 in the lowest rank of 'Hawai sepoy'. In a career spanning over three decades and two wars, he rose from the lowest enlisted rank to the then second-highest rank in the Indian Air Force. Hailed as technical wizard and innovator, he is considered a legend of the IAF.
