At the inauguration of a three-day Air Force Commanders’ Conference here in New Delhi, the Chief of the Air Staff, Air Chief Marshal N.A.K. Browne exhorted the Commanders to uphold the ‘people first mission’ always which is the vision of the IAF. The conference was attended by the Air Force Commanders of all the Operational Commands as well as the Training and Maintenance Commands besides the Principal Staff Officers at the Air Headquarters.

He complimented them for their excellent professionalism and responsiveness during the recent humanitarian and disaster relief operations in Sikkim and Orissa.

The Air Chief said: “The IAF is witnessing an unprecedented phase of modernisation and capability enhancement and can effectively respond to any attempts at undermining India’s national security. The transformational change can be witnessed in all facets of capability building that include not only combat platforms, but also induction of force multipliers and air mobility platforms to provide strategic reach and operational flexibility.”

The Commanders discussed key issues relating to operations, maintenance and infrastructure development and most importantly human resource issues relating to the training of the air warriors.

The key focus was on strategising various aspects related to training and development of air warriors with special emphasis on consolidating flying training and development of air warriors to cope with the depletion in trainer aircraft resources. Emphasis was placed on infrastructural development in the North and North Eastern areas to improve response time through forward basing of armed forces’ assets and supporting the Indian Army in challenging conditions.

Amongst other issues, the discussions ranged from pace of progress in platform and weapon inductions and various processes to the effective integration of modern air defence radars and weapon systems to maintain requisite combat potential. Various maintenance issues like the life cycle philosophies and modernisation of maintenance practices to enable a more inclusive role for the base repair depots in maintaining legacy systems were also deliberated upon. Based on the valuable insight gained during the successful induction of C-130J aircraft, Commanders would also review the processes of the foreign military sales (FMS) to ensure smooth induction of the C-17 aircraft.