INS Hansa, is an Indian naval air station located near

Dabolim Dabolim is a village, with a total population of around 6700, in Mormugão, Goa, India. It is located about 30 km from the state capital Panjim, 23 km from the South Goa district headquarters Margão and 5 kilometres from Vas ...

Goa Goa () is a state on the southwestern coast of India within the Konkan region, geographically separated from the Deccan highlands by the Western Ghats. It is located between the Indian states of Maharashtra to the north and Karnataka to the ...

, India. Data current as of October 2006. It is India's biggest naval airbase. The military air base has a

civil enclave A joint-use airport is an aerodrome that is used for both military aviation and civil aviation. They typically contain facilities of both a civil airport and a military air base. By country United States The United States has several joint-use ...

, that operates as

Dabolim Airport Dabolim Airport is an international airport in Dabolim, Goa, India. It is operated by the Airports Authority of India as a civil enclave in an Indian Navy naval airbase named INS Hansa. The airport is located in Dabolim, 4 kilometers fr ...

History

''INS Hansa'' was commissioned on 5 September 1961 at

Sulur Sulur (Tamil language, Tamil:) is a town located in the Coimbatore district of Tamil Nadu, India. It is a suburb of Coimbatore. It is the headquarters of Sulur taluk, Sulur Taluk of Coimbatore district. There are many market places and many b ...

near

Coimbatore Coimbatore, also spelt as Koyamputhur (), sometimes shortened as Kovai (), is one of the major metropolitan cities in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. It is located on the banks of the Noyyal River and surrounded by the Western Ghats. Coimbato ...

Tamil Nadu Tamil Nadu (; , TN) is a States and union territories of India, state in southern India. It is the List of states and union territories of India by area, tenth largest Indian state by area and the List of states and union territories of India ...

. It was initially co-located with the

Sulur Air Force Station Sulur Air Force Station is an air base of the Indian Air Force located at Sulur near Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu and is India's second largest air base after Hindon AFS. It is the base which is responsible for protection of India's sea area. It is ...

of the

Indian Air Force The Indian Air Force (IAF) is the 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 aerial w ...

. It was then home to

INAS 551 The INAS 551 is an Indian naval air squadron based at INS Dega, Visakhapatnam. History In its early form the squadron existed as the Naval Jet Flight (NJF) at Sulur, which was set up in September 1957 and was equipped with four Vampire aircr ...

squadron, operating

de Havilland Vampire The de Havilland Vampire is a British jet fighter which was developed and manufactured by the de Havilland, de Havilland Aircraft Company. It was the second jet fighter to be operated by the Royal Air Force, RAF, after the Gloster Meteor, and ...

aircraft, as well as training establishments for

Hawker Sea Hawk The Hawker Sea Hawk is a British single-seat jet day fighter formerly of the Fleet Air Arm (FAA), the air branch of the Royal Navy (RN), built by Hawker Aircraft and its sister company, Armstrong Whitworth Aircraft. Although its design origina ...

and

Breguet Alizé Breguet or Bréguet may refer to: * Breguet (watch), watch manufacturer **Abraham-Louis Breguet (1747–1823), Swiss watchmaker **Louis-François-Clement Breguet (1804–1883), French physicist, watchmaker, electrical and telegraph work * Bréguet ...

aircraft. After the annexation of Goa in December 1961, INS Hansa was transferred to Dabolim. In 1983, the Indian Navy began inducting the

BAE Sea Harrier The British Aerospace Sea Harrier is a naval short take-off and vertical landing/vertical take-off and landing jet fighter, reconnaissance and attack aircraft. It is the second member of the Harrier family developed. It first entered servic ...

into service, basing training activities at Dabolim until the Harriers were retired in 2016. Now the base houses MiG-29KUBs, the tandem two-seat operational trainer variant of the carrier based MIG-29Ks. The aircraft has been inducted into the Navy with a complement of 12 MiG 29Ks that have been purchased with the aircraft carrier

INS Vikramaditya INS ''Vikramaditya'' (Sanskrit: ', )Literally ''Vikramaditya'' translates as being "Sun (Aditya) of valour" (Vikram). The component ''"āditya"'' ( sun) literally means "he who belongs to Aditi". It was the title of the most famous Indian king ...

(re-fitted and refurbished Admiral Gorshkov of the Russian Navy). Besides the operation of the MiGs, the Navy also operates

Kamov Ka-28 The Kamov Ka-27 (NATO reporting name 'Helix') is a military helicopter developed for the Soviet Navy, and currently in service in various countries including Russia, Ukraine, Vietnam, China, South Korea, and India. Variants include the Ka-29 a ...

anti submarine helicopters, along with Ilyushin Il-38 May and TU-142M Bear aircraft. Dabolim airbase also hosts exercises by the

's fighter bombers and it has facilities for the

Indian Coast Guard The Indian Coast Guard (ICG) is a maritime law enforcement and search and rescue agency of India with jurisdiction over its territorial waters including its contiguous zone and exclusive economic zone. The Indian Coast Guard was formally esta ...

which operates a fleet of small aircraft such as Dornier 228s. The Indian Navy also carries out long range

maritime patrol {{Unreferenced, date=March 2008 Maritime patrol is the task of monitoring areas of water. Generally conducted by military and law enforcement agencies, maritime patrol is usually aimed at identifying human activities. Maritime patrol refers to ac ...

s as far as the

Horn of Africa The Horn of Africa (HoA), also known as the Somali Peninsula, is a large peninsula and geopolitical region in East Africa.Robert Stock, ''Africa South of the Sahara, Second Edition: A Geographical Interpretation'', (The Guilford Press; 2004), ...

from Dabolim. The Navy has an aerobatic team, based at Dabolim, called the

Sagar Pawan Sagar Pawan (Sanskrit for 'sea breeze') is the aerobatic demonstration team of the Indian Navy's Aviation Arm. It is one of the only two naval aerobatic teams in the world, the other being the Blue Angels of the US Navy. The team uses four H ...

. The team comprises three Kiran aircraft which carry out aerobatic displays at various locations in the country. The team is used in one or two annual public events in Goa for flypasts of 15 to 20 minutes duration. The Navy also operates a naval aviation museum near Dabolim Airport. The

Indian Navy The Indian Navy is the maritime branch of the Indian Armed Forces. The President of India is the Supreme Commander of the Indian Navy. The Chief of Naval Staff, a four-star admiral, commands the navy. As a blue-water navy, it operates sig ...

Shore Based Test Facility A shore-based test facility (SBTF), also known as a land-based test facility, is used for the flight testing of aircraft that operate from aircraft carriers. They are also used for the training of the pilots who will operate the aircraft from th ...

(SBTF), which is a mock-up of the INS Vikramaditya deck built on the airfield at Hansa is used to train and certify navy pilots of the

Mikoyan MiG-29K The Mikoyan MiG-29K (russian: Микоян МиГ-29K; NATO reporting name: Fulcrum-D) is a Russian all-weather carrier-based multirole fighter aircraft developed by the Mikoyan Design Bureau. The MiG-29K was developed in the late 1980s from ...

for operating from the aircraft carrier, and for the developmental trials of the naval

HAL Tejas The HAL Tejas is an Indian, single engine, delta wing, light multirole fighter designed by the Aeronautical Development Agency (ADA) in collaboration with Aircraft Research and Design Centre (ARDC) of Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) for t ...

. This SBTF was designed by Nevskoye Design Bureau (NDB) of Russia for Aeronautical Development Agency (ADA). File:Japanese Maritime Self Defence Force P3C Orion aircraft visit to INS Hansa, Goa - 2017 (2).jpg, P3C Orion Aircraft's at INS Hansa File:Indian Navy Light Combat Aircraft prototype during a test flight in 2014.JPG, Test flight at INS Hansa

Units

Over 2,000

Military personnel Military personnel are members of the state's armed forces. Their roles, pay, and obligations differ according to their military branch (army, navy, marines, air force, space force, and coast guard), rank (officer, non-commissioned officer, or e ...

and 1,000 civilians are based at INS Hansa. It is home to 8 Indian Naval Air Squadrons (INAS). Among the units based here are: *

INAS 300 The INAS 300 is the longest serving combat unit of the Indian Navy, based at INS Hansa. History The White Tigers were commissioned on 7 July 1959 at RNAS Brawdy, United Kingdom with the Indian High Commissioner to UK, Vijay Laxmi Pandit, i ...

, "White Tigers", operating

fighters *

INAS 303 The INAS 303 is an Indian naval air squadron based at INS Hansa INS Hansa, is an Indian naval air station located near Dabolim in Goa, India. Data current as of October 2006. It is India's biggest naval airbase. The military air base h ...

, "Black Panthers" operating

fighters *

INAS 315 The INAS 315 is an Indian naval air squadron based at INS Hansa, Goa. History INAS 315 was commissioned on 1 October 1977 by Rear Admiral M. K. Roy. Cdr B K Malik was the first Squadron Commander. The squadron was initially equipped with t ...

, "Winged Stallions", operating the Il-38

anti-submarine warfare Anti-submarine warfare (ASW, or in older form A/S) is a branch of underwater warfare that uses surface warships, aircraft, submarines, or other platforms, to find, track, and deter, damage, or destroy enemy submarines. Such operations are t ...

aircraft *

INAS 321 The INAS 321 is an Indian naval air squadron based at INS Shikra, Mumbai Mumbai (, ; also known as Bombay — the official name until 1995) is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra and the ''de facto'' financial cen ...

, "Angels", operating

HAL Chetak HAL may refer to: Aviation * Halali Airport (IATA airport code: HAL) Halali, Oshikoto, Namibia * Hawaiian Airlines (ICAO airline code: HAL) * HAL Airport, Bangalore, India * Hindustan Aeronautics Limited an Indian aerospace manufacturer of fight ...

helicopters for

search and rescue Search and rescue (SAR) is the search for and provision of aid to people who are in distress or imminent danger. The general field of search and rescue includes many specialty sub-fields, typically determined by the type of terrain the search ...

INAS 322 The INAS 322 is an Indian naval air squadron based at INS Garuda, Kochi. History The Advanced Light Helicopter (ALH), also known as 'Dhruv', is the first indigenously designed and manufactured helicopter by HAL Bangalore. ALH was inducted in ...

, "Hornets", operating

HAL Dhruv The HAL Dhruv is a utility helicopter designed and developed by Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) in November 1984. The helicopter first flew in 1992; however, its development was prolonged due to multiple factors including the Indian Army ...

helicopters for

* INAS 339, "Falcons", operating Kamov Ka-31 AEW helicopters *

INAS 310 The INAS 310 is an Indian naval air squadron based at INS Hansa. Earlier it was shifted from INS Hansa to INS Sardar patel but later it was re-shifted to INS Hansa. History INAS 310 was formed on 21 March 1961 with Breguet Alizé carrier-bas ...

, "Cobras", operating

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 ...

maritime surveillance aircraft *

INAS 552 INAS 552 is an Indian naval air squadron based at INS Hansa, Goa and is functioning as Naval Flight Test Squadron (NFTS) under HQNA. References Aircraft squadrons of the Indian Navy Military units and formations established in 2005

, "Xplorers", the only flight testing unit of the Indian Navy File:Mikoyan_MiG-29K_of_the_Indian_Navy.jpg, Mikoyan MiG-29K File:HAL Chetak on-deck slithering ops.JPG, HAL Chetak File:IA-1136 HAL Dhruv (Indian Army).jpg, HAL Dhruv File:Indian Navy Kamov Ka-31 (cropped).jpg, Kamov Ka-31

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:INS Hansa Hansa Buildings and structures in South Goa district

History

Units

See also

References