Article Posted on : - Oct 06, 2009

Indian Air Force's AWACS aircraft participates for the first time in the full dress rehearsal for the 77th Air Force Day function in Hindon, Ghaziabad on Tuesday. Image Credit: PTI

Hindan, UP (PTI): For the first time, the Indian Air Force Tuesday displayed its newly-inducted eye-in-the-sky Phalcon Airborne Early Warning and Control System (AWACS) at a fly past here.

Bad weather over the National Capital Region forced the IAF to cut down on its planned aerial display over Hindan air base in Ghaziabad during the full dress-rehearsal of the Air Force Day parade to be held on October 8 as the frontline fighter aircraft such as Sukhoi and Mirage 2000 could not fly-past over the venue.

During the dress-rehearsal, Senior Air Staff Officer of the Western Air Command Air Marshal K S Karnik inspected the parade.

IAF's 'surya Kiran' aerobatics team on Kiran MkII trainer aircraft and the 'sarang' helicopter aerobatics team on their ALH Dhruv helicopters performed their stunts during the parade Tuesday.

The 77th Air Force Day parade will be held at the same venue, where the IAF would be flying a total of 54 aircraft including the Su-30MKI, Mirage-2000, Jaguars and MiG-29s.

Air Chief Marshal P V Naik will take the salute and the parade will be witnessed among others by Marshal of the Air Force Arjan Singh, Army Chief General Deepak Kapoor and Navy Chief Admiral Nirmal Verma.