Air Force Station Arjan Singh , formerly Panagarh Airport, is an

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

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 ...

, in the

state State may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Literature * ''State Magazine'', a monthly magazine published by the U.S. Department of State * ''The State'' (newspaper), a daily newspaper in Columbia, South Carolina, United States * ''Our S ...

West Bengal West Bengal (, Bengali: ''Poshchim Bongo'', , abbr. WB) is a state in the eastern portion of India. It is situated along the Bay of Bengal, along with a population of over 91 million inhabitants within an area of . West Bengal is the fou ...

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 ...

. Now it is an Air Force base under Eastern Air Command of Indian Air Force.

Units

* No. 87 Squadron (

Lockheed C-130J Super Hercules The Lockheed Martin C-130J Super Hercules is a four-engine turboprop military transport aircraft. The C-130J is a comprehensive update of the Lockheed C-130 Hercules, with new engines, flight deck, and other systems. The C-130J is the newest v ...

) *

BAE Hawk The BAE Systems Hawk is a British single-engine, jet-powered advanced trainer aircraft. It was first flown at Dunsfold, Surrey, in 1974 as the Hawker Siddeley Hawk, and subsequently produced by its successor companies, British Aerospace and B ...

History

During

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

, the airport was used as a supply transport airfield from 1942 to 1945 by the

United States Army Air Forces The United States Army Air Forces (USAAF or AAF) was the major land-based aerial warfare service component of the United States Army and ''de facto'' aerial warfare service branch of the United States during and immediately after World War II ...

Tenth Air Force The Tenth Air Force (10 AF) is a unit of the U.S. Air Force, specifically a numbered air force of the Air Force Reserve Command (AFRC). 10 AF is headquartered at Naval Air Station Fort Worth Joint Reserve Base/Carswell Field (formerly Carswel ...

and as a repair and maintenance depot for B-24 Liberator heavy bombers by Air Technical Service Command. The airport has numerous wartime relics, with abandoned taxiways and a large concrete parking ramp remaining, although not used and in a deteriorating state. In 2018 the airport was renamed after

Arjan Singh Marshal of the Indian Air Force Arjan Singh, DFC (15 April 1919 – 16 September 2017) was a senior air officer of the Indian Air Force. He served as the 3rd Chief of the Air Staff from 1964 to 1969, leading the Air Force through the Indo- ...

Facilities

The airport is at an

elevation The elevation of a geographic location is its height above or below a fixed reference point, most commonly a reference geoid, a mathematical model of the Earth's sea level as an equipotential gravitational surface (see Geodetic datum § Ver ...

of 73 m (240 ft) above

mean sea level There are several kinds of mean in mathematics, especially in statistics. Each mean serves to summarize a given group of data, often to better understand the overall value (magnitude and sign) of a given data set. For a data set, the '' ari ...

. It has one

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, concre ...

designated 15/33 with an

asphalt Asphalt, also known as bitumen (, ), is a sticky, black, highly viscous liquid or semi-solid form of petroleum. It may be found in natural deposits or may be a refined product, and is classed as a pitch. Before the 20th century, the term ...

surface measuring 2743 m by 46 m (9000 ft by 150 ft). The Air Force is planning to deploy six mid-air refueling tanker aircraft at Panagarh air base in West Bengal. With the deployment of these tanker aircraft in Panagarh, the striking range of fighter planes like

Su-30 The Sukhoi Su-30 (russian: Сухой Су-30; NATO reporting name: Flanker-C/G/H) is a twin-engine, two-seat supermaneuverable fighter aircraft developed in the Soviet Union by Russia's Sukhoi Aviation Corporation. It is a multirole fighter ...

MKIs based in Tezpur and Chabua (both in Assam) will be enhanced as these can get fuel mid-air. Panagarh is also the likely location of a proposed Army Mountain Corps headquarter. AFS Arjan Singh is another training base for Paratroopers.

Paratrooper Training School PTS (Paratroopers Training School) is a school in Agra, Uttar Pradesh for the training of paratroopers in the Indian Army. PTS was founded in Agra in 1948. History In October, 1941, the 50th Indian Parachute Brigade was formed at Delhi. ...

in Agra have already set up their base here to train Special Forces for operations at night, even beyond the country's borders.

References

External links

* {{Indian Air Force Indian Air Force bases Airfields of the United States Army Air Forces in British India Airports in West Bengal Transport in Durgapur Year of establishment missing