Gandhinagar Airport was a public

airport An airport is an aerodrome with extended facilities, mostly for commercial air transport. Airports usually consists of a landing area, which comprises an aerially accessible open space including at least one operationally active surfa ...

serving the city of

Nashik Nashik (, Marathi: aːʃik, also called as Nasik ) is a city in the northern region of the Indian state of Maharashtra. Situated on the banks of river Godavari, Nashik is the third largest city in Maharashtra, after Mumbai and Pune. Nashi ...

, in the state of Maharashtra,

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

until when it was taken over by the Indian Army to convert it into a Military Airbase. Note: The airport code ISK is transferred to Ozar Airport. On the boarding pass, it might printed as Gandhinagar Airport ISK, but the flight is from Ozar.

History

Indian Airlines used to operate a daily flight between Nashik and Mumbai from 1972 to 1989.

Vayudoot Vayudoot ( hi, वायुदूत, Vāyudūt, messenger who rides on the wind) was a regional airline in India established on 20 January 1981 as a joint-venture between the two state-owned carriers, Indian Airlines and Air India. The airline ...

then took over and operated a

Dornier 228 The Dornier 228 is a twin-turboprop STOL utility aircraft, designed and first manufactured by Dornier GmbH (later DASA Dornier, Fairchild-Dornier) from 1981 until 1998. Two hundred and forty-five were built in Oberpfaffenhofen, Germany. In 19 ...

till June 1992. For five years, there was no air service available from Nashik, till April 1997, when the Maharashtra-Span Air — a joint venture of state government and Span Aviation Ltd — inaugurated its daily service to Mumbai. It operated a 12-seater Beechcraft on the route as a part of the government's plan to connect important districts in the state by air. The service was abruptly discontinued on 30 June 1997. The airfield is now converted into a full-fledged Army Aviation Base where training is imparted to all candidates at the Combat Army Aviation Training School (CATS) at Nashik. The Cheetah helicopter simulator has been set up at Combat Army Aviation Training School (CATS). It is expected to reduce substantial cost in training and also to reduce pilot risk during training. The simulator is designed to expose the trainee to different weather conditions like snow, rain, storm and different terrains in addition to night flying training in handling emergencies, tactical handling of the flying machine, its different maneuvers and more. The project to install a simulator was proposed in December 2000 and approved in April 2002, with CATS Nashik chosen as the centre for installation. Macmet Technologies Ltd, which won the bid over Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL), completed the project by 2005 at a cost of Rs 16.26 crore. After stringent checks, the facility was accepted by the army in December 2005.

References

{{Airports in India Airports in Maharashtra Transport in Nashik Buildings and structures in Nashik Airports with year of establishment missing

History

See also

References