Sirsa Air Force Station or Sirsa AFS (

ICAO The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO, ) is a specialized agency of the United Nations that coordinates the principles and techniques of international air navigation, and fosters the planning and development of international a ...

: VISX) is an

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 ...

base under

Western Air Command , colors= , colors_label= , battles= 1962 Sino-Indian War, 1971 India-Pakistan War, Operation Meghdoot , anniversaries= , commander1= Air Marshal Sreekumar Prabhakaran, AVSM, VM , commander1_label= Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief(AOC-in-C) , n ...

, located at

Sirsa Sirsa is a city and a municipal council in Sirsa district in the westernmost region of the Indian state of Haryana, bordering Punjab and Rajasthan. It is located in Thar desert. It is located 250 kilometres north-west of New Delhi and 260 kilome ...

in the state of

Haryana Haryana (; ) is an Indian state located in the northern part of the country. It was carved out of the former state of East Punjab on 1 Nov 1966 on a linguistic basis. It is ranked 21st in terms of area, with less than 1.4% () of India's land ar ...

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 ...

History

1971 Indo-Pak war

Indo-Pakistani War of 1971 The Indo-Pakistani War of 1971 was a military confrontation between India and Pakistan that occurred during the Bangladesh Liberation War in East Pakistan from 3 December 1971 until the Pakistani capitulation in Dhaka on 16 Decem ...

Pakistan Air Force , "Be it deserts or seas; all lie under our wings" (traditional) , colours = , colours_label = , march = , mascot = , anniversaries = ...

launched a pre-emptive raid on 12 airforce stations,Om Prakash Maurya, 2017
Babu Jagjivan Ram
including Sirsa station, Faridkot Stations, Halwara Air Force Station, a few railway stations, Indian armour concentrations and other targets. However, this failed to cause any significant damage except pothole damage to the runway which was quickly repaired.A.S. Ahluwalia, 2012, Airborne to Chairborne: Memoirs of a War Veteran Aviator-Lawyer of the India Air Force

Dassault Mystère IV The Dassault MD.454 Mystère IV is a 1950s French fighter-bomber aircraft, the first transonic aircraft to enter service with the French Air Force. It was used in large-scale combat in the Israeli Air Force during the 1967 Six Day War. Design ...

jets from Sirsa base pounded the

Pakistan Army The Pakistan Army (, ) is the Army, land service branch of the Pakistan Armed Forces. The roots of its modern existence trace back to the British Indian Army that ceased to exist following the partition of India, Partition of British India, wh ...

pitched against the

Indian Army The Indian Army is the land-based branch and the largest component of the Indian Armed Forces. The President of India is the Supreme Commander of the Indian Army, and its professional head is the Chief of Army Staff (COAS), who is a four- ...

in the Battle of Sabuna Drain. Dassault Mystère also hit a train and destroyed 50 tanks on it between Okara and

Sahiwal Sahiwal (Punjabi language, Punjabi and ur, ), formerly known as Montgomery, is a city in Punjab, Pakistan. It is the List of most populous cities in Pakistan, 21st largest city of Pakistan by population and the administrative capital of both ...

Units

It has No. 21 Squadron IAF of 45

Wing A wing is a type of fin that produces lift while moving through air or some other fluid. Accordingly, wings have streamlined cross-sections that are subject to aerodynamic forces and act as airfoils. A wing's aerodynamic efficiency is expres ...

. Wing is an active air force combat formation. No. 15 Squadron IAF operating

Su-30MKI The Sukhoi Su-30MKI (NATO reporting name: Flanker-H) is a twinjet multirole air superiority fighter developed by Russia's Sukhoi and built under licence by India's Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) for the Indian Air Force (IAF). A varian ...

is also based here. Originally the base was home to a squadron each of

MiG-23 The Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-23 (russian: Микоян и Гуревич МиГ-23; NATO reporting name: Flogger) is a variable-geometry fighter aircraft, designed by the Mikoyan-Gurevich design bureau in the Soviet Union. It is a third-generatio ...

s and

MiG-27 The Mikoyan MiG-27 (russian: Микоян МиГ-27; NATO reporting name: Flogger-D/J) is a variable-sweep ground-attack aircraft, originally built by the Mikoyan-Gurevich design bureau in the Soviet Union and later licence-produced in India ...

s, both single-engine fighters, of No. 21 Squadron IAF.No. 3 Squadron, Indian Air Force
''

Bharat Rakshak Bharat Rakshak ("Defenders of India") is a website devoted to discussing the Military of India. It was started and is run by military enthusiasts. History Bharat Rakshak was started in April 1997 by bringing together the individual websites of In ...

References

External links

Video of the ''Surya Kiran Aerobatics Team'' (SKAT)
during the Air Show at Sirsa Air Force Station. {{Asia in topic, List of airports in Indian Air Force bases Airports in Haryana Sirsa district Airports established in 1964 1964 establishments in East Punjab

History

1971 Indo-Pak war

Units

See also

References

External links