2 Wing Date Raised : 1947-05-21 Location : Lohegaon (Pune) IAF base Pune goes back to the Second World War when the defence of Bombay city and protection of other areas adjoining the city became very vital. The Air Force base was established at Lohegaon to meet these objectives in 1939 as an RIAF base and since then it has been one of the premier air bases in the country. An RIAF Squadron with Mosquito, Willington and Spitfire aircraft moved to this air base in 1939. Gp Capt R Hamildon, DFC was the last British Station Commander of this base. The first Indian Commanding Officer, Wg Cdr HS Ratnagar took over the base on 21 May 47. This base is one of the few bases from where the most variety of aircraft took to the skies and were inducted into the Indian Air Force. Several newly inducted aircraft have taken to the skies from this base. This base inducted the Tempest (3 Sqn, 1947), B-24 Liberator (6 Sqn, 1950s),Vampire(23 Sqn, 1950), Canberra (16 and 35 Sqn, 1957), Super Constellation(6 Sqn, 1960s, Hunter(17 Sqn, 1960s), the first indigenous combat aircraft Marut (220 Sqn, 1969) and MiG-21 Bis (28 Sqn, 1963). In recent history, the base was chosen for the induction of the maritime strike Jaguar aircraft (6 Sqn, 1986). MiG-29 (47 Sqn, 1987), Su-30 K (24 Sqn, 1997) and the Su-30 MKI (20 Sqn, 2002) aircraft Practically. all the aircraft. on the inventory of Indian Air Force since Independence have taken to the skies from Pune at sometime or the other. During 1965 and 1971 conflicts with Pakistan this base was utilised as a staging base for fighter and bomber operations. |
Commanding Officers | |||||
21 May 47 - 30 Sep 48Wing CommanderHomi Shapurji Ratnagar1588 GD(P)Stn CdrLohegaon (Pune) | 10 Oct 48 - 15 Nov 49Wing CommanderJagdish Chandra Varma1646 GD(P)Stn CdrLohegaon (Pune) | 16 Nov 49 - 01 Apr 52Group CaptainRamchander Atmaram1583 GD(P)Stn CdrLohegaon (Pune) | 19 May 52 - 22 Oct 54Group CaptainVictor Srihari1624 F(P)Stn CdrLohegaon (Pune) | 23 Oct 54 - 27 Apr 59Group CaptainMinoo Merwan Engineer1614 F(P)Stn CdrLohegaon (Pune) | |
28 Apr 59 - 06 May 60Group CaptainHari Chand Dewan1598 F(P)Stn CdrLohegaon (Pune) | 01 Jun 60 - 10 Dec 62Group CaptainSarosh Jehangir Dastur1792 F(P)Stn CdrLohegaon (Pune) | 11 Dec 62 - 31 Jul 64Group CaptainSurinder Singh Achreja1987 F(P)Stn CdrLohegaon (Pune) | 01 Aug 64 - 26 Dec 66Group CaptainRointon Merwan Engineer2120 GD(P)Stn CdrLohegaon (Pune) | 10 Jan 67 - 07 Apr 68Group CaptainSurinder Singh3009 F(P)Stn CdrLohegaon (Pune) | |
08 Apr 68 - 01 Aug 70Air CommodoreIdris Hasan Latif1804 F(P)AOCLohegaon (Pune) | 16 Aug 70 - 25 Jan 73Air CommodoreDilbagh Singh2998 F(P)AOCLohegaon (Pune) | 26 Jan 73 - 31 May 75Air CommodoreSaroj Jena3157 F(P)AOCLohegaon (Pune) | 01 Apr 75 - 25 Feb 76Air CommodoreKrishna Mohan Ram3101 F(P)AOCLohegaon (Pune) | 26 Feb 76 - 01 Jan 79Air CommodoreSantosh Kumar Jain3575 F(P)AOCLohegaon (Pune) | |
01 Jan 79 - 25 Feb 82Air CommodoreNirmal Chandra Suri4236 F(P)AOCLohegaon (Pune) | 20 Feb 82 - 31 Dec 84Air CommodoreEdwin Godfrey Salins4796 F(P)AOCLohegaon (Pune) | 01 Jan 85 - 24 Sep 86Air CommodoreKalpathy Annanthakrishna Hariharan5185 F(P)AOCLohegaon (Pune) | 25 Sep 86 - 23 Mar 88Air CommodoreJanak Pratap Singh5672 F(P)AOCLohegaon (Pune) | 25 Mar 88 - 03 Jan 90Air CommodoreIqbal Singh Bindra6360 F(P)AOCLohegaon (Pune) | |
04 Jan 90 - 29 Dec 91Air CommodoreSrinivasapuram Krishnaswamy6338 F(P)AOCLohegaon (Pune) | 30 Dec 91 - 01 Apr 93Air CommodoreSuresh Kumar Sonpar6126 F(P)AOCLohegaon (Pune) | 01 May 93 - 09 May 95Air CommodoreAmlendra Nath Sen8395 F(P)AOCLohegaon (Pune) | 09 May 95 - 21 Jan 97Air CommodoreChittatoor Doraiswami Chandrasekhar8426 F(P)AOCLohegaon (Pune) | 28 Jan 97 - 31 May 99Air CommodoreHarish Masand11272 F(P)AOCLohegaon (Pune) | |
31 May 99 - 03 Jan 01Air CommodoreAjit Vishwanath Vaidya11848 F(P)AOCLohegaon (Pune) | 04 Jan 01 - 09 Jan 03Air CommodoreNorman Anil Kumar Browne13129 F(P)AOCLohegaon (Pune) | 10 Jan 03 - 10 Oct 04Air CommodoreBidanda Chengapa Nanjappa13246 F(P)AOCLohegaon (Pune) | 11 Oct 04 - 10 Dec 06Air CommodoreMadhusudhan Banerjee13400 F(P)AOCLohegaon (Pune) | 11 Dec 06 - 28 Mar 08Air CommodorePradeep Singh14086 F(P)AOCLohegaon (Pune) | |
29 Mar 08 - 14 Feb 10Air CommodoreKarath Padmadass Nair15195 F(P)AOCLohegaon (Pune) | 15 Feb 10 - 29 Jul 11Air CommodoreShreesh Mohan16966 F(P)AOCLohegaon (Pune) | 30 Jul 11 - 30 Mar 13Air CommodoreVivek Ram Chaudhari16978 F(P)AOCLohegaon (Pune) | 08 Apr 13 - 25 Dec 14Air CommodoreSurat Singh18563 F(P)AOCLohegaon (Pune) |