Training Command (India)

Training Command is the Indian Air Force's command responsible for flying and ground training.

In the 1930s, the approaching threat and later advent of World War II and the leaning of Japan towards the Axis powers, the latter was considered as a potential enemy. Therefore, need was felt to make IAF a self-supporting force for the South Eastern Theatre of war. This led to the rapid expansion of the IAF. A target was fixed of 10 IAF Squadrons. With this expansion, the requirement of pilots and technical personnel increased. For the training of technical personnel, a technical training school was set up at Ambala in 1940.

In a 1949 reorganisation of the Indian Air Force, while frontline units were put under the Operations Command, all the training institutions were placed under the jurisdiction of the Training Command.

Among Training Command's units is the Navigation Training School at Begumpet Air Force Station, Hyderabad. It flies the BAe HS. 748, the Basic Flying Training School and the Air Force Administrative College. The Hawk Operational Training Squadron and Weapon System Operators' School are located at Bidar Air Force Station which flows the Hawk Mk 132 trainer aircraft.

Early training platforms

Before and during the early years of Training Command’s establishment, the Indian Air Force relied on British-origin trainer aircraft such as the de Havilland Tiger Moth, Percival Prentice, and the North American Harvard to train successive batches of pilots. These aircraft formed the bedrock of IAF’s basic and advanced flight training from the 1930s through the 1950s, before being gradually replaced by indigenous and jet-powered platforms. A detailed account of this evolution has been documented in:

Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief

List of Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief

Rank	Name	From	To
Air commodore	Ravinder Hari Darshan Singh	Template:Dts	Template:Dts
	Surendra Nath Goyal	Template:Dts	Template:Dts
	Pratap Chandra Lal	Template:Dts	Template:Dts
	Kanwar Jaswant Singh	Template:Dts	Template:Dts
	Ranjan Dutt	Template:Dts	Template:Dts
Air Vice Marshal		Template:Dts	Template:Dts
	Surendra Nath Goyal	Template:Dts	Template:Dts
	Teja Singh Virk	Template:Dts	Template:Dts
	Victor Srihari	Template:Dts	Template:Dts
	Anand Ramdas Pandit	Template:Dts	Template:Dts
	Gian Dev Sharma	Template:Dts	Template:Dts
	George Kanishtkumar John	Template:Dts	Template:Dts
Air Marshal	Maurice Barker	Template:Dts	Template:Dts
	Randhir Singh	Template:Dts	Template:Dts
	Hemant Ramkrishna Chitnis	Template:Dts	Template:Dts
	George Kanishtkumar John	Template:Dts	Template:Dts
	Balwant Wickram Chauhan	Template:Dts	Template:Dts
	Erasseri Pathayapurayil Radhakrishnan Nair	Template:Dts	Template:Dts
	Vir Narain	Template:Dts	Template:Dts
	Jagdish Kumar Seth	Template:Dts	Template:Dts
	Rajendra Kumar Dhawan	Template:Dts	Template:Dts
	Verinder Puri	Template:Dts	Template:Dts
	Krishna Bihari Singh	Template:Dts	Template:Dts
	Jagbir Singh Rai	Template:Dts	Template:Dts
	Teshter Jall Master	Template:Dts	Template:Dts
	Bijoy Krishna Pandey	Template:Dts	Template:Dts
	Subhash Bhojwani	Template:Dts	Template:Dts
	Bhushan Nilkanth Gokhale	Template:Dts	Template:Dts
	Gurnam Singh Choudhary	Template:Dts	Template:Dts
	Venkataraman Ramamurthy Iyer	Template:Dts	Template:Dts
	Dhiraj Kukreja	Template:Dts	Template:Dts
	Rajinder Singh	Template:Dts	Template:Dts
	Paramjit Singh Gill	Template:Dts	Template:Dts
	Ramesh Rai	Template:Dts	Template:Dts
	Sridharan Panicker Radha Krishnan Nair	Template:Dts	Template:Dts
	Rakesh Kumar Singh Bhadauria	Template:Dts	Template:Dts
	Surendra Kumar Ghotia	Template:Dts	Template:Dts
	Arvindra Singh Butola	Template:Dts	Template:Dts
	Rajiv Dayal Mathur	Template:Dts	Template:Dts
	Manavendra Singh	Template:Dts	Template:Dts
	Radhakrishnan Radhish	Template:Dts	Template:Dts
	Nagesh Kapoor	Template:Dts	Template:Dts
	Tejinder Singh	Template:Dts	Incumbent

See also

• Maintenance Command