India
From Mirage 2000 fighter jet to massive C-130J Super Hercules, around 16 aircraft of the Indian Air Force took part in the special drill on the Agra-Lucknow Expressway on Tuesday.
Updated : Oct 24, 2017, 03:46 PM IST
From Mirage 2000 fighter jet to massive C-130J Super Hercules, around 16 aircraft of the Indian Air Force took part in the special drill on the Agra-Lucknow Expressway on Tuesday.
But beyond the spectacular show of strength, the short landing drill is actually related the national security.
1: The touch and go landing is meant to showcase the preparedness of the Indian Air Force during emergencies.
2: The readiness to land even the 35,000 kg C-130J means that the Indian Air Force is not only ready for war but also for humanitarian crisis or natural disaster.
3: The three-hour long exercise simulated war-like situations that saw Garud Special Forces commandos coming out of the C-130J transport aircraft and securing the zone.
4: The drill, which was conducted near Bangarmau in the Unnao district, was first of its kind carried out this year.
5: Conventionally, the air bases are first targets during wars. The usage of national highways as landing strips means that the Air Force can function even during such situations.
6: This is the fourth time that fighter jets made a short landing on a national highway. A Mirage-2000 had landed on the Yamuna Expressway near Delhi for the first time in 2015. A similar exercise was conducted in May 2016, when a Mirage-2000 fighter plane touched down on the expressway. Last November, six Sukhoi-30 jets touched down on a 3.3- km stretch of the Lucknow-Agra Expressway.
7: The drill is part of Centre's effort to develop national highways as emergency landing strip.
8: Across India, around 12 such highways have been identified for the purpose. Three of these 12 connect Odisha, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh -- all Maoist-affected areas, which also witness vagaries of nature like floods and cyclones almost every year.
9: To make the highways as fighter jet-friendly, the thickness of the tar used on these roads would be increased to make them strong enough.
10: According to reports, the 12 highways have been selected in a way so that the Indian Air Force can cover the entire country.