Maintenance Command

Maintenance Command is a command of the Indian Air Force. It was raised as Maintenance Group at Chakeri in Kanpur in 1950. In 1955, it was designated as Maintenance Command. Its current headquarters is located at Vayusena Nagar in Nagpur (Maharashtra); it handles the repair, overhaul and maintenance of all aircraft, helicopters and other equipment. MC has about nine Base Repair Depots taking care of the overhaul and maintenance of various types of aircraft.

Maintenance Command
Emblem of the Maintenance Command
Founded26 January 1955
CountryIndia
BranchIndian Air Force
TypeSupport
HeadquartersNagpur, Maharashtra
Motto(s)Sarvada Gagenecharet
(Sanskrit: Always Flying in the Sky)
Commanders
Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief Air Marshal Vibhas Pande[1]
Air Marshal Hemant Sharma, AVSM, VSM, handing over the aircraft HPT-32 to Narayan Ramdas Iyer at Raman Science Centre on 15 December 2017

History

The Maintenance Command was established on 26 January 1955. Group Captain Harjinder Singh was the first Commanding Officer (CO). Harjinder Singh, a legendary engineering officer with many firsts to his credit was at the helm of the command until his retirement in 1963. The appointment of the CO was upgraded to Air Officer Commanding (AOC) in 1958 when Singh was promoted to Air Commodore.[2] It was further upgraded to Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief (AOC-in-C) when he was promoted to the rank of Air Vice Marshal. In 1971, the appointment of AOC-in-C was upgraded to the three-star rank of Air Marshal.[3]

Organisation

The command's Base Repair Depots include:[4]

  • 1 Base Repair Depot Kanpur-Chakeri Various Overhaul
  • 2 Base Repair Depot Gwalior-Maharajpur Various Overhaul
  • 3 Base Repair Depot Chandigarh Mi-8, Mi-17, Mi-25, Mi-35 Overhaul
  • 4 Base Repair Depot Kanpur-Chakeri Various Overhaul
  • 5 Base Repair Depot Coimbatore-Sulur Various Overhaul
  • 7 Base Repair Depot Tughlakabad- New Delhi Various Missile System
  • 9 Base Repair Depot Pune, Various Overhaul
  • 11 Base Repair Depot Ojhar MiG-23, MiG-29 Overhaul
  • 18 Base Repair Depot Jodhpur MiG-21 Overhaul

Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief
List of Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief
Rank Name From To
Group Captain Harjinder Singh 25 January 1955[5] 23 March 1958
Air commodore 24 March 1958 14 May 1959
Air Vice Marshal 15 May 1959 2 August 1963
Om Prakash Mehra 3 August 1963[5] 17 February 1967
Hirendra Nath Chatterjee 18 February 1967[5] 31 March 1968
Hari Chand Dewan 1 April 1968[5] 23 March 1971
Air Marshal Gurbachan Singh 24 March 1971[5] 31 March 1973
Anand Ramdas Pandit 1 April 1973[5] 29 February 1976
Idris Hasan Latif 1 March 1976[5] 19 May 1977
Devaiah Subia 20 May 1977[5] 31 July 1978
Jafar Zaheer 24 August 1978[5] 19 January 1979
Hemant Ramkrishna Chitnis 22 February 1979[5] 29 February 1980
Chandra Kant Viswanath Gole 18 April 1980[5] 13 January 1981
Kanwar Iqbal Singh Chhabra 14 January 1981[5] 31 January 1985
Satish Chandra Lal 1 February 1985[5] 31 December 1982
Madan Lal Sethi 1 January 1986[5] 31 October 1987
Kuldip Singh Bhatia 1 November 1987[5] 30 April 1989
Sibaprasad Chakrabarti 1 May 1989[5] 31 January 1991
Indrakanty Gopala Krishna 1 February 1991[5] 30 June 1993
Rajamani Ramamurthy 1 July 1993[5] 31 December 1994
Ramesh Chandra Bajpai 1 January 1995[5] 31 October 1996
Ghanshyam Gururani 1 November 1996[5] 31 July 1997
Shanti Swaroop Gupta 1 August 1997[5] 30 April 2002
Dinesh Chandra Nigam 1 May 2002[5] 30 April 2004
Vijay Adhyutrao Patkar 6 July 2004[5] 30 April 2005
Kirti Shekhar Chaturvedi 16 May 2005[5] 31 March 2007
Jayant Satchidanand Apte 2 April 2007[5] 30 November 2007
Gautam Nayyar 1 December 2007[5] 31 March 2009
Pramod Vasant Athawale 1 April 2009[5] 31 August 2011
Jagdish Chandra 1 September 2011[5] 30 June 2013
Packiriswamy Kanakaraj 1 July 2013[5] 30 November 2014
Jagjeet Singh 1 December 2014[5] 31 March 2016
Pankaj Aneja 1 April 2016[5] 31 May 2017
Hemant Sharma 1 June 2017[5] 31 January 2019
Raj Karan Singh Shera 1 February 2019[5] 31 December 2019
Shashiker Choudhary 1 January 2020[5] 31 May 2022
Vibhas Pande 14 June 2022[5] Incumbent

See also

References
  1. "Air Marshal Vibhas Pande takes over as chief of IAF Maintenance Command in Nagpur". The Hindu. PTI. 14 June 2022. ISSN 0971-751X. Retrieved 19 July 2022.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
  2. "THE ROLE OF MAINTENANCE COMMAND IN THE IAF" (PDF). pibarchive.nic.in. 17 March 1956.
  3. "Maintenance Command". www.bharat-rakshak.com.
  4. Jane's World Air Forces: India, 20 May 2010, via defense.pk
  5. "Maintenance Command - BRF". Bharat Rakshak. Retrieved 8 May 2023.
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