By IANS
New Delhi : The Indian Air Force successfully tested its new ‘flexi airspace’ concept in tandem with the Airport Authority of India (AAI) during a just conducted exercise in south India.
“The IAF and AAI jointly shared the airspace through close coordination so that smooth flow of traffic was maintained without causing disruption of scheduled flights” during exercise ‘Dakshin Prahar’, an IAF release Tuesday said.
“This was the first time that coordination of civil-military traffic for simultaneous air activity took place at such large scale,” it added of the exercise that concluded Tuesday.
“With the success of ‘Dakshin Prahar’, a new chapter of joint civil-military sharing of airspace, airfields, radars and professional expertise has begun,” the release said.
Conceptualised by the Southern Air Command (SAC), the exercise was conducted in two phases at Thiruvananthapuram and Hyderabad.
During the exercise, state of the art aircraft like the Mirage-2000 that took off from Thiruvananthapuram and Dundigal, Sukhoi Su-30s from forward bases in Gujarat and northwestern Rajasthan and Jaguars from Arakkonam “simulated friendly and hostile forces over long aerial ranges covering the length and breadth of the country” using air-to air refuelling facilities and off-base operations, the release said.
“Operational tactics were formulated to cater to contemporary threat scenarios involving beyond visual range (BVR) weaponry, avionics-laden combat aircraft and far reaching air defence weapons.
Aircraft like the mammoth IL-76, the workhorse AN-32 and the ubiquitous Mi-8 helicopters provided logistical support. Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) were also deployed during the exercise.
An important aspect of integration during the exercise was the role of the Indian Navy and the Coast Guard in pooling their resources and infrastructure at various places like Visakhapatnam, Goa, Mangalore, Arakkonam and Kochi to smoothen the process of inter-operability.
The Indian Navy and the Coast Guard provided search and rescue vessels up to the Lakshadweep & Minicoy Islands. Airfields and support services were thrown open to use by the AAI, which regulated the incessant airline traffic across the southern skies.
The Indian Army facilitated communication networking and troops for the exercise apart from utilising its air defence artillery guarding a high value target against air raids.
IAF troops also took part in the action with their MANPADS (man portable air defence systems).
In addition to this, a satellite was stationed to cover the specified targets on ground and send high-resolution imagery for analysis before and after an “attack”. It was supplemented by the UAV that took photographs and relayed them to the SAC Operations Room in Thiruvananthapuram.
” ‘Dakshin Prahar’ thus proved to be a trail blazer as an integrated civil-military operational exercise that has now operationalised the so far militarily dormant southern peninsular airspace,” the IAF release said.
“The synergetic effort of tri-service cooperation with integration of AAI vindicated the theory of achieving grand success of pursuing a common objective through teamwork and combined effort,” it added.