Airliners-India.com

karatecatman · Guest

Sent by email
Jodhpur and Chhabua to be next Su-30 bases
Ajit K Dubey

New Delhi, Oct 19
To strengthen its air combat machinery along the borders with both Pakistan and China, India has decided to deploy its air superiority Su-30MKI fighter aircraft in Jodhpur in Rajasthan and Chhabua in Assam.
‘‘We have decided to deploy the next two new squadrons of Su-30MKIs in Jodhpur and Chhabua,’’ a highly-placed IAF officer has said.
IAF will get these warplanes by the end of this plan period. ‘‘We are hoping that both these bases will be operational with Su-30s by the end of the 2007-12 plan period,’’ the officer said.
Jodhpur will be the first Su-30MKI base along the Pakistan border. Till now, the IAF has deployed its main strike fighter either in Lohegaon near Pune or closer to China in Bareilly.
At the moment, IAF has three squadrons of Su-30 MKIs, two of which are based at Air Force Station (AFS) Lohegaon and the third is stationed at AFS Bareilly.
The fourth squadron of Su-30s for the IAF will be raised at Lohegaon in February next year and one of the existing Su-30 squadrons from Lohegaon will be moved to Tezpur in Assam by 2009.
IAF has started operating Su-30s in high-altitude areas too and currently one of the three squadrons is conducting practise flights from the Leh air base in Jammu and Kashmir.

karatecatman · Guest

http://tinyurl.com/5r9ovr
TIMES OF INDIA

IAF's first Sukhoi squadron in Punjab by 2011
16 Nov 2008, 1609 hrs IST, PTI

NEW DELHI: In a move to provide teeth to its Air Force fleet along the Indo-Pak border, India will deploy two of its air superiority Sukhoi fighter
squadrons in Halwara air base in Punjab by 2011.

The Indian Air Force's (IAF) sword-arm Western Air Command (WAC) has drawn up a two-year plan and is preparing to host the Sukhoi squadrons at the Halwara fighter base near Ludhiana.

"We will get the first of the Su-30 squadrons to be based under the WAC by 2011 at the Halwara air base," WAC chief Air Marshal Pranab Kumar Barbora said.

The IAF has already started the work to develop the infrastructure for deploying the squadrons with the most potent fighter aircraft in its fleet at the air base, which currently hosts the MiG-23 BN squadrons.

"We have started developing infrastructure for the Su-30 MKIs' deployment there. Work on the runway and other facilities has started and its going to be fully prepared for the aircraft in the next two years," Barbora said here.

The two Su-30 MKI squadrons would be deployed at Halwara simultaneously once the MiG-23s are phased out early next year.

These would be the first Su-30 MKI squadrons under the WAC, the largest of IAF's five operational commands in terms of area.