Air Force Station In India

Air Force Station In India

Indian Air Force maintains as many as 60 Air Force Stations, coming under seven Air Commands headed by an Officer in Air Marshal’s rank called Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief, these Air Commands based at

• Delhi, which is the Western Air Command
• Shillong, which is the Eastern Air Command
• Allahabad, which is Central Air Command
• Thiruvananthapuram, which is Southern Air Command
• Gandhinagar, which is the South Western Air Command
• Bangalore, functioning as Training Command and
• Nagpur, which is Maintenance Command.

Indian Air Force is also raising new air force stations, in strategic locations, while Indian Navy houses exclusive air bases for the aviation wing in all its installations located at different port cities.

The Western Air Command being the largest among the above seven, is of strategic importance because of its proximity to Pakistan, holding sixteen air bases between Punjab and Uttar Pradesh, and another fifteen in the Eastern and North Eastern Parts of India, among which the air bases at Adampur, Ambala, Chandigarh, Halwara, Hindan, Jaiselmer, Jamnagar, Jodhpur and Pathankot are considered very important strategic locations, while its other bases include Avantipur, Amritsar, Bhatinda,  Leh, Palam, and Srinagar, Sirsa and Udhampur

The Eastern Air Command has with it the Airforce stations at Agartala, Darbhanga, Baghdogra, Barapani at Shillong, Barackpore, Chabua at Dibrugarh, Dum Dum at Kolkata, Hasimara at Jalpaiguri, Jorhat, Kalakunda, Kumbhigram at Silchar, Mohanbari at Dibrugarh, Mountain Shadow at Guvahati, Tawang, Tezpur and Panagarh.

Central Air Command operates with seven Air Force Stations in Uttar Pradesh and surrounding areas, which include Agra, Bakshi Ka Talab near Lucknow, Bamrauli, Bareilly, Chakeri at Kanpur, Gorakhpur, Maharajjpur at Gwalior.

The importance of the Southern Air Command lies with protection of vital shipping routes, which is operating nine air force stations in Southern India, such as Tambaram,  Sulur at Coimbatore, Madurai and Thanjavur, , besides two in Andaman and Nicobar Islands, one at Car Nicobar and the other at Port Blair.

South Western Air Command operates with twelve air force stations, based in the States of Gujarat, Maharashtra and Rajasthan, which include Barmer, Bhuj, Nalia, and Poona while those at Ahmadabad, Nal, Suratgarh and Uttarlai in its command are forward airbases.

The Air Force Stations under Training Command are  based in Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh States, while the maintenance command of the Indian Air Force operates from two Air Force Stations, which are based at Nagpur in Madhya Pradesh state and Nasik in Maharashtra State.