Air Marshal Raghunath Nambiar on Monday took over as the Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief of the Eastern Air Command at a ceremony here.
Air Warriors of Headquarters Eastern Air Command presented Air Marshal Nambiar, who succeeded Air Marshal Anil Khosla, with a ceremonial guard of honour on assuming command.
Khosla has been appointed as new Vice Chief of Air Force.
Commissioned in the Indian Air Force as Fighter Pilot in June 1981, Nambiar has the distinction of having the highest number of flying hours on the Mirage-2000 in the IAF with over 2300 flying hours on the aircraft to his credit, and overall 5100 hrs of flying experience.
He is an Experimental Test Pilot and has flown 42 types of aircraft as Pilot in Command.
Nambiar, who had earlier served in the Eastern Air Command headquarters as Senior Air Staff Officer (SASO), is a member of the Society of Experimental Test Pilots and was the Project Test Pilot for the Light Combat Aircraft Tejas.
Prior to taking over as chief of EAC, he was the Deputy Chief of the Air Staff.
Headquartered in Shillong, the Eastern Air Command's area of responsibility covers 11 states and it has permanent airbases at Chabua, Guwahati, Bagdogra, Barrackpore, Hasimara, Jorhat, Kalaikunda and Tezpur with forward airbases at Agartala, Kolkata, Panagarh and Shillong.
--IANS
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