Toofani was a direct translation from the aircraft’s French name, meaning Hurricane. The French MD 450 Ouragan fighter-bomber also manufactured by Dassault and which, like the Rafales, were also commissioned at Ambala Air Force Station in 1953, was amongst the first to be nicknamed as Toofani in the then-fledgling IAF founded 21 years earlier, in 1932 as the Royal IAF. This had led some veterans to surmise that the IAF aimed to give local names only to indigenous platforms like the LCH, and not those which were imported. Recently imported transporters like Lockheed Martin’s C-130J-30s and Boeings C-17 ‘Globemasters’ as well as AH-64E Apache attack and CH-47F Chinook heavy-lift helicopters, too are not known by a local appellation and continue with their western handles. Photo: Himmat Rathore/Flickr CC BY 2.0Ĭonsequently, the 36 Dassault Rafale fighters that were recently commissioned into service have not been nicknamed, much like the earlier Russian-origin Sukhoi Su-30MKI multi-role fighters that joined IAF service 1997 onwards and comprise the backbone of the IAF’s combat fleet. The MiG-25 reconnaissance fighter was nicknamed Garuda.

They nostalgically conceded that there was no scope in today’s IAF for any ‘romance or imagination’, as it had become an excessively demanding and detached force, robbing it of ‘enchanting quirks’ like tagging aircraft, amongst other diverse idiosyncratic endeavours. Senior retired IAF officers regretted that this ‘highly agreeable’ and appealing practice of aircraft naming had been discontinued, over two decades ago, on the specious reasoning of it being ‘extraneous and superfluous’, with a handful of subsequent exceptions. This committee delved into India’s rich animal world tapestry, multihued and varied mythology and colourful history, before deciding on appealing names which, in some instances also depicted the designated platform’s capabilities. It’s also a nostalgic flashback to the old days when most IAF fighters, transporters and helicopters were given native names, of which we were proud, added the highly decorated fighter pilot.įor nearly five decades, till the mid-1990s, the IAF bestowed most of its platforms with catchy and robust local appellations that were shortlisted in an elaborate process of elimination, by a senior officers committee at Air Headquarters in New Delhi, and finally approved by the Air Chief before being publicly formalised. “Giving aircraft homegrown names is a welcome move as it gives them a distinct Indian identity,” said Air Marshal V.K. Chandigarh: In christening its newly inducted Light Combat Helicopter (LCH) Prachand (fearless), the Indian Air Force (IAF) seems to have once again revived its lapsed tradition of bestowing its platforms with colourfully vibrant local monikers.

Real images of maharana pratap