27 Wing Date Raised : 1979-01-26 Location : Bhuj The airstrip was constructed by the US Air Force in 1941-42 during World War-II to serve as a transit base between Karachi and Bombay (now _Mumbai). During that period, Dakota aircraft operated frequently from this base. After World War-II, the USAF handed over the airstrip to the then 'Maharao of Kutch'. A private operator, Mr. Kabali, started air services between Mumbai-Jamnagar-Bhuj and Karachi with Dakota aircrafts. In 1947, the airfield was handed over by the Maharao to the Union of India. A civil terminal building came up in 1948 and civil flights continued operations with British Heron and Avro aircraft. The first IAF establishment came into being as 12 Care & Maintenance Units (C & MU) in 1968. 12 C & MU was converted to 6 FBSU on 07 Aug 72. On 26 Jan 79, the base was upgraded to a Wing and this marked the birth of 27 Wg, Air Force. One Sqn of MiG-21 Bis aircraft was also relocated from Pune to Bhuj, thus completing the process of making it a frontline fighter base.
|
Commanding Officers | |||||
26 Jan 79 - 01 Mar 79Wing CommanderSharad Narayan Medhekar5062 GD(P)Stn CdrBhuj | 01 Mar 79 - 01 Aug 80Group CaptainSatish Chandra Jain5068 GD(P)Stn CdrBhuj | 01 Aug 80 - 01 Mar 83Group CaptainTrevor Joseph Fernandes5287 GD(P)Stn CdrBhuj | 01 Apr 83 - 14 Oct 85Group CaptainBipinchandra Shantaram Raje5182 GD(P)Stn CdrBhuj | 14 Oct 85 - 15 Mar 87Group CaptainSuresh Kumar Sonpar6126 GD(P)Stn CdrBhuj | |
25 Mar 87 - 03 Jan 90Group CaptainChittatoor Doraiswami Chandrasekhar8426 GD(P)Stn CdrBhuj | 04 Jan 90 - 08 Mar 93Group CaptainDileep Nilkanth Pandit8166 GD(P)Stn CdrBhuj | 09 Mar 93 - 10 Aug 94Group CaptainSatish Kumar Jain9716 GD(P)Stn CdrBhuj | 11 Aug 94 - 19 Jan 97Group CaptainAdhip Banerjee11592 GD(P)Stn CdrBhuj | 20 Jan 97 - 24 Aug 97Group CaptainParvez Hamilton Khokhar11860 GD(P)Stn CdrBhuj | |
25 Aug 97 - 29 Dec 97Group CaptainMohinder Pal Singh Gill13604 F(P)Stn CdrBhuj | 30 Dec 97 - 04 Feb 01Group CaptainSatvir Singh Dhanda13926 F(P)Stn CdrBhuj | 05 Feb 01 - 08 Dec 02Group CaptainMohit Kumar14674 F(P)Stn CdrBhuj | 09 Dec 02 - 04 Jul 04Group CaptainSanderraman Neelakantan15184 F(P)Stn CdrBhuj | 05 Jul 04 - 17 Jul 06Group CaptainNavkaranjit Singh Dhillon16580 F(P)Stn CdrBhuj | |
17 Jul 06 - 06 Jul 08Group CaptainSurendra Kumar Ghotia16575 F(P)Stn CdrBhuj | 07 Jul 08 - 31 Mar 09Group CaptainRajiv Dayal Mathur16772 F(P)Stn CdrBhuj | 01 Apr 09 - 09 May 10Group CaptainNagesh Kapoor18557 F(P)Stn CdrBhuj | 10 May 10 - 21 May 12Group CaptainHardeep Bains19180 F(P)Stn CdrBhuj | 21 May 12 - 31 Mar 13Group CaptainDhananjai Vishnu Wani18568 F(P)Stn CdrBhuj | |
01 Apr 13 - 06 Apr 14Air CommodoreDhananjai Vishnu Wani18568 F(P)AOCBhuj | 26 May 14 - 06 Jun 16Air CommodoreKanthalloor Saraswathy Kumar Suresh18822 F(P)AOCBhuj | 06 Jun 16 - 24 Jun 18Air CommodoreKartikeya Kale19883 F(P)AOCBhuj |