Gift For Indian Air Force This Week: A Flying Vintage DC-3 Dakota

A historic week begins for Indian aviation. After years in suspense, this week the Indian Air Force will receive as a gift a refurbished flying vintage Douglas DC-3 Dakota aircraft for its heritage squadron.

The aircraft, repaired and made flight-worthy by Indian member of Parliament Rajeev Chandrasekhar in Coventry in the United Kingdom, will be delivered to the Indian Air Force in a few weeks. This week, Chandrasekhar will ceremonially hand over a ‘gift deed’ to Indian Air Force chief Air Chief Marshal B.S. Dhanoa in Delhi, IAF sources confirmed.

The Dakota, named Parashuram, will bear the tail no VP 905, the same as the first such aircraft in Indian service that transported troops of the Army’s 1 Sikh Regiment to Srinagar on 27 October 1947 as part of the J&K Operations just weeks after India’s independence. Chandrasekhar’s father Air Commodore M.K. Chandrasekhar (Retd.) was a Dakota pilot in the IAF. It is on behalf of the veteran pilot that the gift is being made.

Livefist learns that the IAF will take delivery of the aircraft in the United Kingdom, with dates and the event still being firmed up. The aircraft will be ferried to India across eight days with multiple stops by March this year, IAF sources familiar with the project said. For Chandrasekhar himself, the coming week will be a culmination of a journey that has been far from easy.

Quite apart from the challenge and expense of bringing a virtually scrapped 1948 vintage Dakota to fly-worthy status, Chandrasekhar’s proposed gift was initially turned down by the previous UPA government in 2010-11 on grounds that there were no ‘rules’ or ‘protocols’ that allowed the acceptance of such gifts. When Chandrasekhar revived the offer to the new government after 2014, the Ministry of Defence under then minister Manohar Parrikar readily accepted. The Indian Air Force has been known to be keen on adding the Dakota to its vintage flight, which currently includes a de Havilland Tiger Moth and a T-6G Harvard.

With ‘VP 905’ set to arrive in weeks, it’s virtually certain that it will fly at the Air Force Day festivities in October this year.

Remembered by IAF pilot veterans variously as the ‘finest’ and ‘most forgiving’ aircraft in the world, Dakotas entered Indian service shortly before independence in 1946, going on to play a crucial logistics and transport role during hostilities that broke out shortly after. Going on to play an indispensable role in the 1962 and 1971 wars, Dakotas flew their last missions in the eighties, finally retiring in 1987. The Indian Air Force has scrapped all of its retired Dakotas, with an intact airframe from the IAF museum gifted in 2014 to Bangladesh.

Desktop
Mobile

Let's block ads! (Why?)



from Livefist http://ift.tt/2EAWuIY
via Live Defense
Gift For Indian Air Force This Week: A Flying Vintage DC-3 Dakota Gift For Indian Air Force This Week: A Flying Vintage DC-3 Dakota Reviewed by Unknown on 00:40:00 Rating: 5

No comments:

Defense Alert. Powered by Blogger.