French airforce contingent arrives in India for `Garuda-5`

Jodhpur: Four French Rafale fighter aircraft and a contingent of about 70 French airforce personnel on Saturday landed at Jodhpur airbase to participate in the 10-day long joint air exercise "Garuda-5".

The air exercise, expected to be attended by Defence Minister Arun Jaitley, will kick start at the Jodhpur airbase on June 2. The two air forces would be engaged in various missions ranging from close combat engagement of large forces, slow mover protection, and protecting and engaging high-value aerial assets in the exercise at the strategic airbase near Indo-Pak border. The air exercise will include four Rafale multirole fighter aircraft and one air refueler that will participate with IAF`s multirole Su-30MKI, four MiG-27 and four MiG-21 (BISON) aircraft. The chiefs of both air forces will be flying the Rafale and Su-30 MKI. The objective of the exercise is to acquaint the fighter pilots of the two countries with the fighter tactics of each other, air to air refuelling, cross-servicing of a common type between ground crews and understanding basic concepts of each countries fighter operations, defence sources said.