"Though falling squadron strength is a cause of worry," Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief Western Air Command Air Marshal P S Ahluwalia said that IAF had the resources and platforms to get the better of any threat from the western sector.
India needs an aerospace command to exploit outer space and it will be established soon, Chief of Air Staff Air Chief Marshal S P Tyagi said on Sunday.
Tezpur is the last of the IAF bases in the country to phase out the MiG 21.
Interacting with visiting reporters recently at the command's headquarters in Shillong, Barbora, the first officer from the northeast to head an IAF command, recollected the Chinese agression in the north-east in 1962.
As economic challenges, trade and energy security take precedence over peninsular issues, the role of armed forces in protecting nation's interests became crucial, he said.
He became the first helicopter pilot to be named chief of the Indian Air Force.
The fleet landed at Al Dhafra airbase on Monday in the United Arab Emirates after flying for over seven hours from the Merignac airbase. It was the only stopover by the jets while flying from France to India.
Air Marshal Arup Raha, an ace fighter pilot, on Tuesday took over as the Indian Air Force chief succeeding Air Chief Marshal NAK Browne.
Air Marshal P S Ahluwalia will take over from Air Marshal Savur, who retires from service on Thursday.
Indian Air Force chief Air Marshal S P Tyagi on Monday denied that private airliners were luring away IAF pilots by offering them attractive salaries.\n\n
The perpetrators of the 2008 Mumbai attack, who shot dead 166 people, had confessed to details that should have been enough to hang him, but Pakistan enjoyed his anti-India rhetoric and let him spread his tentacles. A revealing excerpt from Khaled Ahmed's Pakistan's Terror Conundrum.
Indian Air Force's 115 Helicopter unit and 26 Squadron, both doing yeoman's services in rescue operations and war have been awarded with the President's Standard award, an official said on Friday.
The unstated aim of a well-publicised airlift operation of this kind is to demonstrate India's ability to rapidly move troops and equipment over long distances.
The US would deploy its F-16s and other sophisticated combat aircraft for the exercise christened 'Cope India'
The radar will help in monitoring movement of low-flying aircraft.
'You have been surrounded from all directions, if you want the safety of your troops and your personal safety, we will give you eight hours to make up your mind to surrender.'
'We decided that we would fire our rockets and dive into the valley and get away, making it difficult for the missiles to be fired.'
"There is a threat and a persistent one on this account," IAF's Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief, Western Air Command, Air Marshal A R Gandhi said.
Teams of the National Disaster Response Force started landing in Gujarat with the help of the Indian Air Force to undertake preventive evacuation of people living on the west coast, an IAF official said.
The Chinese have just one commander for all the forces confronting India. Commanders of all these forces answer to one man, and one headquarter. India, on the other hand, offers a diversity of options that is a military embarrassment in the 21st century. In Arunachal and Sikkim-Bhutan, the Eastern Army Commander is in charge. In the Uttarakhand (central) sector, it will be the Central Army Commander. The Himachal-Tibet border is the domain of the Western Army Commander. And all of Kashmir and Ladakh further on, the Northern Army's. Effectively, an array of at least eight 'three-star' commanders will be arrayed against one Chinese, says Shekhar Gupta.
'The impact of merely innocent clouding on radar waves is not expected to be significant on air defence radars of either country to affect operational profiles in modern day context. '
The key airbase at Panagarh in West Bengal has been renamed as 'Air Force Station Arjan Singh' in honour of the Marshal of the Air Force, who turned 97 on Friday.
It will be tough for the Congress leader to return to the Upper House from either Telangana or Andhra, where the party's presence has dwindled. But neither House will forget her.
In an unprecedented measure, the Maharashtra government requested defence officials to arrange airlift of the stranded passengers of the 17412 Mahalaxmi Express.
Both the pilots had ejected, IAF officials said, adding efforts were on to find them.
Claude Arpi reveals how Wing Commander Jag Mohan Nath won a second Maha Vir Chakra in the 1965 War.
With cruise missile and air strikes being India's most likely response to a hypothetical Pakistani terrorist outrage in the future, retaliation from the Pakistan air force is inevitable. That is where the S-400 will come into play, says Ajai Shukla.
'If we had sent a few airplanes (into Tibet), we could have wiped the Chinese out.' 'And everything could have been different in the 1962 War.' 'They did not believe me there was no Chinese air force.' 'Can you imagine what would have happened if we had used the IAF at that time?' 'The Chinese would have never dared do anything down the line.'
Announcing the start of day-time domestic commercial operations, the Airports Authority of India said on Saturday night that decision on night operations would be taken on Sunday.
'It is purely based on real-time hard intelligence.' 'Timing is important. When you are attacking at 3.30 am, then everybody will be in the academy of terrorists.' 'If you attack at 10 am then someone will be out, so timing is very important.' 'Therefore, 3.30 am is the time when every terrorist is sleeping.'
In a fresh bid to break the Bofors jinx, Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar on Saturday cleared proposal to acquire 814 artillery guns for Rs 15,750 crore.
Despite a couple of flaws Samsung Galaxy Note 5 Duos remains a superior package and still stands out, contends Himanshu Juneja
Defence experts have questioned the way the audacious terror attack on the Indian Air Force base in Pathankot was handled, with some even saying it was the result of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's "high-risk" mission to Lahore where he met his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif.
Arjan Singh, the Marshal of the Indian Air Force, was a fearless and exceptional pilot and remained a source of inspiration to all personnel of the Armed Forces through the years.
With the focus now shifting from disaster mitigation of cyclone to flood relief, the defence ministry on Monday said it has pressed four helicopters into service to evacuate the marooned local population as well as to drop relief materials to Phailin hit areas.
As counter-terrorism operations at the Pathankot air base continued for the second consecutive day, the Union government on Sunday said it was unsure if more terrorists were still holed up.
'The sky is the limit for what all could be done at an air base to neutralise terrorists. Good proactive local leadership and delegated operational effort would be key to ensuring that a handful of terrorists cannot hold a whole air base, and by extension, the whole nation to ransom,' says Group Captain P I Muralidharan (retd).
Lt Gen Bakshi announced 'full support' to the new chief and made it clear that he won't resign.
Indian Air Force on Friday raised its first squadron of the home-grown Light Combat Aircraft Tejas with the induction of two aircraft into the force at the Aircraft System Testing Establishment in Bengaluru.
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