Tezpur airfield set to host combat aircraft again

It was in 1942 when the Vampires and Toofanis flew from Tezpur air base which was constructed by the Royal British Indian Air Force for operations during Second World War. Tomorrow when four Sukhoi 30MKI aircraft will be formally deployed in the Tezpur air base, it will witness revival of the military operations that were stopped in September, 2007. The airfield was developed into a full-fledged Air Force base in 1959, with its location bearing immense significance as it lay strategically between Bhutan, China, Myanmar and Bangladesh. The air base has seen deployment of a number of squadrons of Hunter, MIG 21, Mi-4 helicopters besides Cheetah and Chetak helicopters. Ever since its inception, the air base had been the most active air base in the Northeast with a variety of fixed and rotary wing aircraft operating from here, an IAF spokesman said. He said in fact in the last 25 years, it was home to the MIG-21 fleet which was used extensively to train rookie pilots for the Indian Air Force. Located less than 350 km from the McMohan Line that divides India and China, the air base was made a MIG-operational flying unit for training young officers before they were commissioned as full-fledged pilots as tension between India and China eased after 1970. The airfield also handled civil flights from 1993, being the only feeder to the state of Arunachal Pradesh. In September, 2007 fighter operations were discontinued at the base to facilitate extensive runway repair and extension. The spokesman said the airfield, spread over 21 acres, would now open both for civil and military operations as the revamp of the runway, taxi track, hanger and other infrastructure have been completed. The Su-30MKI is a twin cockpit, multi-role all-weather fighter with air-to-air refuelling capability and a comabat radius of 1,500 km. The aircraft, now being manufactured at Hindustan Aeronautics Limited, Nasik, was originally designed and developed by Russia. Tezpur would be the third air base in the country to house the multi-role fighters, with a symbolic induction of four fighter planes scheduled to take place tomorrow. Later a full squadron would be deployed at the base and another at Chabua in Eastern Assam subsequently. The MKI variant of the warplane, which was inducted in 2002, is said to have an impeccable safety record. India currently has three squadrons of the Su-30 MKI - two at Pune and one at Bareilly.

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