THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: A museum on the Indian Air Force (IAF) will be set up at Akkulam Boat Club as part of raising awareness about the IAF and promoting tourism. As a first step, the IAF installed a decommissioned Kiran aircraft at the boat club on Tuesday.
‘’The installation of the aircraft is a joint effort by the civil administration and the Akkulam-based Southern Air Command of Indian Air Force to develop Akkulam Lake as a hot spot for tourists. An Indian Air Force museum will also be set up at the venue very soon. These are part of the measures being taken by IAF to reach out to our citizens,’’ a defence spokesperson said.
The indigenously-built Kiran aircraft had earned tremendous goodwill for the IAF and the country by performing aerobatics in venues across the world. The Kiran aircraft, which was inducted in 1968, has flown over ten lakh hours and trained 6,000 pilots of the IAF. The Kiran display aircraft was jointly inaugurated by Tourism Minister Kadakampally Surendran and Air Marshal B Suresh, Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief, Southern Air Command (SAC).
Incidentally, the decommissioned Kiran is not the first aircraft to go on display in the city. A Sea Hawk of the Indian Navy which had seen action in the 1971 Indo-Pak war on the eastern front is on display at the Jawahar Balbhavan. A MiG-27 fighter was put on display at the Rajiv Gandhi Academy for Aviation Technology some years ago. The IAF’s plan to have a museum here is not a surprising decision since SAC, the youngest air command, has its headquarters at Akkulam. In a statement, SAC said that the coordination and synergy between the civil administration and SAC that was evident during the rescue and relief operations in the recent mid-August floods in the state is being further strengthened by such measures.