Vice Chief, Air Marshal AP Singh has been appointed as the next Chief of the Air Staff to take over from Air Chief Marshal VR Chaudhari on September 30, the day the latter retires on superannuation. He had taken over as the Vice Chief of the IAF in February last year.
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A recipient of the Param Vishisht Seva Medal (PVSM) and Ati Vishisht Seva Medal (AVSM), Air Marshal AP Singh during his 40 years career, commanded an operational fighter squadron and a frontline air base.
He has held important staff appointments of Air Defence Commander at Southwestern Air Command and Senior Air Staff Officer at Eastern Air Command. Prior to assuming his current appointment, he was the Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief at Central Air Command.
Air Marshal AP Singh is a qualified flying instructor and an experimental test pilot with more than 5,000 hours of flying experience on a variety of fixed and rotary wing aircraft.
As a test pilot, he led the MiG-29 upgrade project management team in Moscow. He was also the project director (flight test) at the National Flight Test Centre looking after the flight testing of India’s indigenous Light Combat Aircraft, Tejas.
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An alumnus of the National Defence Academy, Defence Services Staff College and National Defence College, the Air Marshal was commissioned into the fighter stream of the IAF on December 21, 1984.
‘Tarang Shakti 2024’ multinational air exercise
Earlier in September this year, Air Marshal AP Singh oversaw the conduct of ‘Tarang Shakti 24’ at the Jodhpur Air Force Station, the largest multinational air exercise India has held. The exercise was broken into two phases to allow for optimum participation from 10 nations and 18 observing nations.
