IAF conducts touch & go exercise on lucknow Agra expressway

DAINIK NATION BUREAU

In a bid to prepare for war-like situations, Indian Air Force today conducted a touch and go landing exercise on the Lucknow-Agra Expressway. It was commenced with a short landing by the C-130J transport aircraft, which dropped IAF’s Special Forces Garud commandos and their vehicle.

More than 20 aircraft took part in the exercise including French Dassault Mirage-2000, Jaguar, Sukhoi-30 MKI, AN-32 transport and Super Hercules C 130J.

The exercise conducted in between Bangarmau in Unnao, which is around 65 km from Lucknow. The two-hour long exercise was to train the Air Force fighters and personnel to deal with emergency like situations like an aerial attack or destruction of a base, which would require immediate touch down and take off from other places to retaliate.

IAF conducted the touch and go landings on a stretch of the expressway today, starting with a 35,000-kg C-130J Super Hercules aircraft. This is the first time that the C-130J transport aircraft joined the Indian
Air Force’s special drill to land planes on the expressway. The IAF had earlier landed its Mirage 2000 and Sukhoi-30MKI fighter jets on the Yamuna Expressway and the Lucknow-Agra Expressway.

IAF had conducted similar exercise in May 2015 when a Mirage 2000 fighter had performed the touchdown on the Yamuna Expressway near Delhi.