Ever wondered which stars protect you from the sky?
Yes, they are none other than the Air warriors of The Indian Air Force!

The IAF along with the Army and Navy works over the cut to ensure that we live peacefully in our country. These warriors act as a shield between every external factor that wants to harm us! It may be any operation, the Indian Air Force is always ready to serve our nation. In the recent IAFs flood relief and rescue operation IAF has done 584 "winchings" -- pulling up stranded people to a hovering helicopter using a strong line. It was the highest number of winchings any branch of the armed forces has ever done in a humanitarian operation.

Captain Raghu Raman in one of his talks explains the Indian Air Force as :

When he was a small boy he saw a fire power demonstration of the IAF. It lasts for about 20-25 minutes and usually the Chief Guest is the Prime Minister (Indira Gandhi at that time). Everyone was waiting for the demo to begin and then the MC goes on the mic and tells everyone that the demonstration will begin in next five seconds and requests everyone to be quiet. He asks everyone to keep their eyes on the right hand side because from there the first sortie which will fly, will fly so low and so fast that even if you blink the eyes you will miss the sortie. After that the two aircrafts with the ground trembling just passes over your head as like two shadows passing by beacause they were flying at a height of 50 meters and subsonic speed. And then the demo begins, explosions happening, aircrafts taking out targets and at the end of the show they notice there is a helicopter hovering behind the dust cloud. After the dust settles down the helicopter slowly moves toward the dice of the chief guest, a commando slithers down carrying a packet on his back, runs towards the Prime Minister, salutes her, goes down on one knee and hands it over to her and asks her to open the packet.

When she opens the packet, what she sees is a 6x6 photo of her face looking at the first air craft that passed by, picture taken with every minute details of her face, in 20 minutes developed the photo, transported it and delivered to the prime minister to tell her what her Air Force can do!

Some of the Achievements of the Indian Air Force :

• 1. 4th Largest air force in the world.
• 2. Has landed on the world’s highest landing air strip (Elevation : 16,700 ft)
• 3. C-130 record of "Longest Global Flight" ever. (13 Hrs & 31 mins) in the air!

Let’s salute these unsung warriors through the great initiative of Atharva Foundation “ONE FOR ALL, ALL FOR ONE” on 31st January 2019 at NSCI Dome, Worli, @ 6:30 PM.

Abhishek Bhople
Atharva College Of Engineering