Wing Commander Chandrakant Sridhar Naik was appointed, on deputation from I.A.F. as Officer-in-Charge, Flight Test Group HF-24 Project on 1st June, 1960. The officer's task was to create facilities for flight development of the HF-24 Prototype. Such facilities did not exist in the country as this was the first time flight development of a high performance aircraft was undertaken in India. The task involved planning of flight test, working our the most optimum flight test techniques, design and installation of automatic recording equipment in the prototypes, working out the methods of analysis of results, training of raw personnel, etc. Being a completely new field of technical activity no trained personnel were readily available. The time available for creation of facilities was barely nine months. Starting with these severe handicaps, this officer executed his task in a commendable manner and managed to undertaken flight development of Supersonic aircraft. The voluminous data obtained and analysed during the flights of the prototypes have proved to be very accurate and extremely valuable. In the absence of such data the development of the HF-24 aircraft would have been a difficult task. Wing Commander Naik, in executing these tasks, has shown very high engineering skill and devotion to duty of a high order.

Air Commodore Chandrakant Shridhar Naik was commissioned as an Aircraft Engineer on 16th September, 1947. He has served at a number of operational and training bases as an Engineering Officer and as the Chief Technical Officer of a major Air Force Wing. He has also served in a number of appointments on the maintenance staff of Command Headquarters and Air Headquarters. Recently, he commanded a major Base Repair Depot of the Air Force. At present, Air Commodore Chandrakant Shridhar Naik is the Air Officer Commanding Air Force Station, Kanpur. He has been responsible for improving the functioning of Air Force Station, Kanpur. He has personally supervised the production of aircraft, aeroengines and rotables at two Base Repair Depots. It was largely due to his efforts that both these Depots have shown significant increase in production. In addition to production of aircraft and ancillaries, both these Depots were entrusted with urgent operational tasks which involved development and manufacture of modification sets. These tasks were accomplished in record time.

Throughout, Air Commodore Chandrakant Shridhar Naik has rendered distinguished service of an exceptional order.

Air Marshal Chandrakant Shridhar Naik AVSM VSM (3499) Aeronautical Engineering (Mechanical) was commissioned in the Indian Air Force in 1947. He completed Post Graduate Course in Aircraft design in the College of Aeronautics in the United Kingdom. He also graduated from the National Defence College.

During his long service career, he has held various important assignments with distinction. While on deputation with the Hindustan Aeronautics Limited, he was intimately associated with the setting up a viable flight test organisation. He headed a team of Indian engineers to a foreign country for collaboration in a joint aeronautical engineering development project. He commanded an aircraft Base Repair Depot and, subsequently, the largest Air Force Maintenance Base which provided maintenance support to our fleet of operational aircraft during Indo-Pak Conflict, 1971. As Assistant Chief of Air Staff (Engineering) at Air Headquarters, he was responsible for successfully tackling serious unserviceability problems of a large number of grounded aircraft and for introducing various modifications for safe flying which helped in better utilisation of all types of aircraft with the available resources. In his present appointment of Air Officer in-charge Maintenance, he has ensured productivity with safety. He reorganised the Maintenance Branch on a functional basis to bring about maximum and effective utilisation of the limited inventory of aircraft spares and maintenance equipment and introduced computerised management information system which has considerably improved the serviceability and operational capability of aircraft and other systems. For his distinguished performance in his earlier career, he was awarded Vishisht Seva Medal in 1964 and Ati Vishisht Seva Medal in December 1971.

Air Marshal Chandrakant Shridhar Naik has thus rendered distinguished service of the most exceptional order.