Former Indian Army chief and curren Governor of Arunachal Pradesh, General (Retd) JJ Singh accompanied by IAF Eastern Commander Air Marshal S Varthaman inaugurated the Advance Landing Ground (ALG) at Vijaynagar in India’s north-eastern state of Arunachal Pradesh today. The inaugural flight of An-32 landed at Vijaynagar ALG today putting a remote part of the North-East into the web of air connectivity in India, the IAF said in a statement.
The Indian Air Force operated Douglas C-47 Dakotas and De Havilland DHC-3 Otters from 1962 and the role was transferred to the An-32 in 1984. This ALG was made of perforated steel plate (PSP) sheets. Air maintenance operations had to be discontinued a few years ago as a result of deterioration in the surface. Subsequently extensive repairs were undertaken and the entire runway surface was renovated by the IAF with the help of the PWD Arunachal Pradesh. This ALG will now facilitate routine and regular air maintenance.
Photos / Indian Air Force & DPR Defence
THE INDIANS ARE COMING!!
some drones alongwith some mirage should be placed there.
Funny colour for a radome!! Is there a story behind it? Does the recent upgrade have anything to do with it? If this airframe was part of it that is.
i think the nose colour scheme is not good… light grey or matt grey would make this baby more mean lokking.
Boy that surface needs another coat of tarmac.
It has seen better days for sure.
India should go in for more C -130j's and deploy few there along with SAM's and special forces.
Seems very bad runway…
the surface doesnt seem to be at par wid other runways :/.. hope the make it better soon.. jai hind !!
grass all over the damn runway? does the iaf HAVE any standards whatsoever?
this is the quality of work from PWD. my village roads are better than that runway.
It's because if IAF asks AK Antony for money to build a new runway he will
1)Announce an international open tender for new runway from every runway construction firm in the world
2)Take 3 years for RFI, RFP and RFQ
3)Take another 3 years for shortlisting contractors.
4)Take another 3 years for selecting the final winner
5)Cancel the whole deal due to baseless allegations of corruption
6)Repeat steps 1-5
Thus are the wonders of defence procurements(everything from nuts and bolts to fighter aircraft) from the great 'Mr. Clean'(according to Congressi media and no one else) AK Antony's Defence Ministry!
What a joke..
How is India supposed to cope with the Chinese threat with infrastructure like this?
I think the road that leads to AK ANTHONYS house, may be better as a landing strip.
As long as an aircraft lands on it, that should be fine. I think C-130J is just meant to land on semi-prepared runways (now looks like even An-32 can do just that!!). Why make it super "nice" and spend extra money when the first thing the enemy would do is to bomb it??.
Could be good camouflage actually. The enemy would not know as to which one is a village road and which one is an aircraft runway (provided they dont get to see any aircraft standing nearby and somehow their GPS devices dont work)!!..Am not sure though if it can really deceive the enemy that way!.
-Sudheendra
Sudeendra
I think the point is, if we have bad runways these might have the potential to damage aircraft components. It is better to have 3 smooth runways rather than 5 with potholes and grass.
I'm sure people with common sense would agree.
BC,
I am sure that military transport aircrafts are called 'military' for a specific reason. "Short Take off and landing even on semi prepared runways"…is what differentiates a military one than civilian.
IAF RFP must indicate this and only after that they proceeded to buy C-17's & C-130j. Idea is-> during wartime, repair the bombed runway as quickly as possible and get the aircraft's airborne as early as possible, which should be done with minor patch up work to the damaged runway! – sudheendra
And yet with an intact runway operations are easier and you can land aircraft like Do-228, passenger jets, tankers and AWACS planes etc which are platforms not designed for unprepared airstrips.
I'm sure China has built up THEIR border airfields for a good reason and not just waste of money.
thatz correct. But this is not a regular airstrip. It is an "Advanced Landing Ground" and not a full fledged Air Force Base to land mid air re-fuellers, AWACS, figher jets, and if desired even passenger air craft. It only functions as support during wartime. There are already main air stations / bases in North East like in Tezpur to land all kinds of aircrafts.The article itself mentions that this aldvanced landing ground are made of perforated steel plate sheets.
Moreover, even tankers are made out of military aircrafts and so are awacs (i think). May be they can land even on this ALG (not sure).
-sudheendra
thatz correct. But this is not a regular airstrip. It is an "Advanced Landing Ground" and not a full fledged Air Force Base to land mid air re-fuellers, AWACS, figher jets, and if desired even passenger air craft. It only functions as support during wartime. There are already main air stations / bases in North East like in Tezpur to land all kinds of aircrafts.The article itself mentions that this aldvanced landing ground are made of perforated steel plate sheets.
Moreover, even tankers are made out of military aircrafts and so are awacs (i think). May be they can land even on this ALG (not sure).
-sudheendra
We used to operate to this ALG not much bigger than a football field (in the mid-Sixties and Seventies), using Canadian-built Short Take Off and Landing (STOL) aircrafts like DeHavilland CARIBOU and the single-engine OTTER. It was almost an hour plus flight deep into the valley, with nowhere to put down the aircraft in case of any emergency. There was no chance for any error while landing and taking off fully-loaded from this stamp-sized field. Those were tough days indeed with no navigational aids available and very poor communication facilities on the ground.
Now things have improved much with the ALG being lengthened/strengthened to take on safer multi-engine planes like C-130J SUPER HERCULES and of course the twin-engine ANTONOV AN-32 and the smaller DORNIER DO-228.