, colors = , colors_label = , battles =

1962 Sino-Indian War The Sino-Indian War took place between China and India from October to November 1962, as a major flare-up of the Sino-Indian border dispute. There had been a series of violent border skirmishes between the two countries after the 1959 Tibet ...

East Pakistan Operations 1971 East Pakistan Air Operations covers the activity of the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) and Pakistan Army Aviation units in former East Pakistan during the Bangladesh Liberation War. The operations involved the interdiction, air defense, ground suppor ...

, Operation Meghdoot, Orissa Super-Cyclone Relief, 1999 , anniversaries = , commander1 = Air Marshal Sujeet Pushpakar Dharkar,

AVSM Ati Vishisht Seva Medal (AVSM) is a military award of India given to recognize "distinguished service of an exceptional order" to all ranks of the armed forces. The award is a peacetime equivalent of Uttam Yuddh Seva Medal, which is a Wartime Dis ...

, commander1_label =

Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief The atmosphere of Earth is the layer of gases, known collectively as air, retained by Earth's gravity that surrounds the planet and forms its planetary atmosphere. The atmosphere of Earth protects life on Earth by creating pressure allowing for ...

, notable_commanders = , identification_symbol = , identification_symbol_label = , start_date = May 27, 1958 The Eastern Air Command is one of the five operational commands of the

Indian Air Force The Indian Air Force (IAF) is the air force, air arm of the Indian Armed Forces. Its complement of personnel and aircraft assets ranks third amongst the air forces of the world. Its primary mission is to secure Indian airspace and to conduct ...

. Currently headquartered in

Shillong Shillong () is a hill station and the capital of Meghalaya, a state in northeastern India, which means "The Abode of Clouds". It is the headquarters of the East Khasi Hills district. Shillong is the 330th most populous city in India with a ...

Meghalaya Meghalaya (, or , meaning "abode of clouds"; from Sanskrit , "cloud" + , "abode") is a state in northeastern India. Meghalaya was formed on 21 January 1972 by carving out two districts from the state of Assam: (a) the United Khasi Hills and J ...

. Named No. 1 Operational Group at the time of its inception, 27 May 1958, it was based at Ranikutir in

Kolkata Kolkata (, or , ; also known as Calcutta , the official name until 2001) is the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal, on the eastern bank of the Hooghly River west of the border with Bangladesh. It is the primary business, comme ...

as a part of the

Govt A government is the system or group of people governing an organized community, generally a state. In the case of its broad associative definition, government normally consists of legislature, executive, and judiciary. Government ...

's increasing emphasis on defence of the eastern borders. The Operational Group was upgraded as Command on 1 December 1959 with headquarters at Fort William,

and Air Vice Marshal KL Sondhi as the first AOC-in-C of the Eastern Command. After the 1962 Indo-Chinese War, The decision was made to raise a full-fledged command at Shillong. The area of responsibility of the command now covers 11 states, and is bound by the international boundaries of

Nepal Nepal (; ne, नेपाल ), formerly the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal ( ne, सङ्घीय लोकतान्त्रिक गणतन्त्र नेपाल ), is a landlocked country in South Asia. It is ma ...

Bhutan Bhutan (; dz, འབྲུག་ཡུལ་, Druk Yul ), officially the Kingdom of Bhutan,), is a landlocked country in South Asia. It is situated in the Eastern Himalayas, between China in the north and India in the south. A mountainou ...

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, most populous country, with a Population of China, population exceeding 1.4 billion, slig ...

Myanmar Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British English although only some British English speakers pronounce r at the end of syllables. As John Wells explai ...

and

Bangladesh Bangladesh (}, ), officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh, is a country in South Asia. It is the eighth-most populous country in the world, with a population exceeding 165 million people in an area of . Bangladesh is among the mo ...

incorporating 6300 km of common border. Eastern Air Command now has permanent airbases at Chabua,

Guwahati Guwahati (, ; formerly rendered Gauhati, ) is the biggest city of the Indian state of Assam and also the largest metropolis in northeastern India. Dispur, the capital of Assam, is in the circuit city region located within Guwahati and is the ...

Bagdogra Bagdogra is a settlement in the Naxalbari CD block in the Siliguri subdivision of the Darjeeling district, in the Indian state of West Bengal. It is a part of the Greater Siliguri Metropolitan Area. The Bagdogra is well connected by air to ...

Barrackpore Barrackpore (also known as Barrackpur) is a city and a municipality of urban Kolkata of North 24 Parganas district in the Indian state of West Bengal. It is also a part of the area covered by Kolkata Metropolitan Development Authority (K ...

Hasimara Hasimara is a town in Alipurduar district of West Bengal state, India near the border with Bhutan. It is located at 26° 45' N latitude and 89° 21' E longitude at an altitude of 109 metres above sea level and has a population of about 40,000 (20 ...

Jorhat Jorhat ( ) is one of the important cities and a growing urban centre in the state of Assam in India. Etymology Jorhat ("jor" means twin and "hat" means market) means two hats or mandis - "Masorhaat" and "Sowkihat" which existed on the opposite ...

Kalaikunda Kalaikunda is a census town in the Kharagpur I CD block in the Kharagpur subdivision of the Paschim Medinipur district in the state of West Bengal, India. Geography Location Kalaikunda is located at . Area overview Kharagpur subdivision, s ...

and

Tezpur Tezpur () is a city and urban agglomeration in Sonitpur district, Assam state, India. Tezpur is located on the banks of the river Brahmaputra, northeast of Guwahati, and is the largest of the north bank cities with a population exceeding 10 ...

with forward airbases at

Agartala Agartala () is the capital city of the Indian state of Tripura, and is one of the largest cities in northeast India. The city is governed by the Agartala Municipal Corporation. The city is the seat of the Government of Tripura. It is located ...

Panagarh Panagarh is a small town in the Paschim Bardhaman district of West Bengal, India. Geography Location Panagarh is located at . It has an average elevation of . Urbanisation According to the 2011 census, 79.22% of the population of the Durg ...

and

. Eastern Air Command consists of Air Defence squadrons consisting of the

MiG-21 The Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-21 (russian: Микоян и Гуревич МиГ-21; NATO reporting name: Fishbed) is a supersonic jet fighter and interceptor aircraft, designed by the Mikoyan-Gurevich Design Bureau in the Soviet Union. Its nickn ...

and

Ground attack In military tactics, close air support (CAS) is defined as air action such as air strikes by fixed or rotary-winged aircraft against hostile targets near friendly forces and require detailed integration of each air mission with fire and movemen ...

squadrons consisting of the MiG-27. It holds the motto "Samareshu Parakramaha" (''Lit: Valour in battle''),

Activities and responsibilities

The Eastern Air Command has a specific mandate both during peace and war. In war situations, the command is tasked to conduct counter air operations and provides offensive air support to Army and Para-Military Forces. In peace, the command swings into action whenever there is a natural calamity. It was extensively involved in relief operations in the aftermath of the supercyclone in Orissa and has provided relief supplies during floods in

Assam Assam (; ) is a state in northeastern India, south of the eastern Himalayas along the Brahmaputra and Barak River valleys. Assam covers an area of . The state is bordered by Bhutan and Arunachal Pradesh to the north; Nagaland and Manipur ...

and

Arunachal Pradesh Arunachal Pradesh (, ) is a state in Northeastern India. It was formed from the erstwhile North-East Frontier Agency (NEFA) region, and became a state on 20 February 1987. It borders the states of Assam and Nagaland to the south. It shares ...

. The command has three broad spheres of activity - operations, maintenance and administration. The fighter squadrons under the Eastern Air Command are equipped with MiG variants, and pilots are under continuous training for operational flying. At

, located on the northern bank of the

Brahmaputra The Brahmaputra is a trans-boundary river which flows through Tibet, northeast India, and Bangladesh. It is also known as the Yarlung Tsangpo in Tibetan, the Siang/Dihang River in Arunachali, Luit in Assamese, and Jamuna River in Bangla. It ...

in Upper

, newly commissioned ab-initio fighter pilots undergo fighter pilot training and on successful completion get inducted into various fighter squadrons in IAF. Majority of the fighter fleet of Eastern Air Command consists of

and the MiG-27 (''Bahadur''). The transport aircraft and

helicopter A helicopter is a type of rotorcraft in which lift and thrust are supplied by horizontally spinning rotors. This allows the helicopter to take off and land vertically, to hover, and to fly forward, backward and laterally. These attribu ...

of the Eastern Air Command are critical in the North-East India. The

topography Topography is the study of the forms and features of land surfaces. The topography of an area may refer to the land forms and features themselves, or a description or depiction in maps. Topography is a field of geoscience and planetary sc ...

in the hill regions restrict the construction of a standard

runway According to the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), a runway is a "defined rectangular area on a land aerodrome prepared for the landing and takeoff of aircraft". Runways may be a man-made surface (often asphalt, concrete ...

. Tribal settlements in places like Menchuha, Vijaynagar and Tuting in remote and inaccessible areas of

totally depend on the aerial supply by the Air Force. They also depend on these aircraft to airlift their sick and ailing. The district headquarters at Anini, a conglomeration of about ten tribal settlements with a population of a couple of thousand in

is the only one of its kind in the world which is totally air-maintained. Pilots operate from the advance landing grounds (ALG) with only one third of the length of a regular runway, having unique and uni-directional approach and take off requirements. This coupled with the vagaries of weather expects superior skills from the pilots and their navigators. Both man and machine are stretched to the limits of their capabilities. Helicopter operations also form a critical part of the responsibilities of the Easter Air Command. For the pilots who negotiate this remote and inaccessible terrain, the experience gained over the last five decades has been well assimilated. The contribution of Eastern Air Command in bringing relief and in aiding civilian population in times of calamity and strife is an unsung saga of commitment, daring and dedication.

War operations

The Eastern Air Command was a major participant in 1962

Sino-Indian War The Sino-Indian War took place between China and India from October to November 1962, as a major flare-up of the Sino-Indian border dispute. There had been a series of violent border skirmishes between the two countries after the 1959 Tibet ...

and the Indo-Pak war of 1971. During the 1962 war, Eastern Air Command was tasked with mounting transport support missions, a task admirably performed by its Dakota and

Caribou Reindeer (in North American English, known as caribou if wild and ''reindeer'' if domesticated) are deer in the genus ''Rangifer''. For the last few decades, reindeer were assigned to one species, ''Rangifer tarandus'', with about 10 subspe ...

aircraft. It also mounted

reconnaissance In military operations, reconnaissance or scouting is the exploration of an area by military forces to obtain information about enemy forces, terrain, and other activities. Examples of reconnaissance include patrolling by troops ( skirmishe ...

and casualty evacuation sorties using the

Bell A bell is a directly struck idiophone percussion instrument. Most bells have the shape of a hollow cup that when struck vibrates in a single strong strike tone, with its sides forming an efficient resonator. The strike may be made by an inte ...

and Sikorsky helicopters it operated at the time. During the 1971 war, Eastern Air Command was tasked with offensive as well as supply operations. It was involved right from the first clash over Boyra to the

Tangail Airdrop The Tangail Airdrop was a successful battalion-size Para Commandos (India) operation mounted on 11 December 1971 by the 2nd Battalion (Special Operations) (2 PARA) of the Indian Army's Parachute Regiment and the 49 Squadron of the India ...

. It also operated Mi-4 helicopters in offensive roles behind enemy lines, operating from helicopter bases in

Tripura Tripura (, Bengali: ) is a state in Northeast India. The third-smallest state in the country, it covers ; and the seventh-least populous state with a population of 36.71 lakh ( 3.67 million). It is bordered by Assam and Mizoram to the ea ...

Organization

Squadrons include (as of 2015):

Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief

Aircraft

* Sukhoi Su-30 MKI *

Mil Mi-17 The Mil Mi-17 (NATO reporting name: Hip) is a Soviet-designed Russian military helicopter family introduced in 1975 (Mi-8M), continuing in production at two factories, in Kazan and Ulan-Ude. It is known as the Mi-8M series in Russian service. ...

Mil Mi-24 The Mil Mi-24 (russian: Миль Ми-24; NATO reporting name: Hind) is a large helicopter gunship, attack helicopter and low-capacity troop transport with room for eight passengers. It is produced by Mil Moscow Helicopter Plant and has been ...

* Avro 748 *

An-32 The Antonov An-32 ( NATO reporting name: Cline) is a turboprop twin-engined military transport aircraft. Design and development The An-32 is essentially a re-engined An-26. It is designed to withstand adverse weather conditions better than the ...

References