History of the IAF

The Indian Air Force history precedes World War II by eight years. The Indian Air Force (IAF) was established by the passing of the Indian Air Force Act on October 8, 1932. Accordingly, IAF's No.1 squadron came into being on April 1, 1933. Initially, the IAF consisted of five Indian pilots, one RAF commanding officer and four Westland Wapiti biplanes.

The first five pilots commissioned into the IAF were Harish Chandra Sircar, Subroto Mukerjee, Bhupendra Singh, Aizad Baksh Awan and Amarjeet Singh. All of them were commissioned as Pilot Officers in 1932 from RAF Cranwell. Subroto Mukerjee later went on to become the IAF's first Chief of the Air Staff.

In recognition of the services rendered by the IAF, King George VI conferred the prefix 'Royal' in 1945. Thereafter the IAF was referred to as Royal Indian Air Force. In 1950, when India became a republic, the prefix was dropped and it reverted back to being the Indian Air Force.

The Indian Air Force has a strength of 170,000 personnel and 1129 combat aircrafts (as per 2005 figures).