Indian Air Force takes part in Blue Flag, Israel's largest air exercise, for the first time

Screen grab: Twitter

NEW DELHI: For the first time, the Indian Air Force or IAF is participating in Blue Flag 2017, Israel's largest aerial exercise.

A 45-member contingent of the IAF, led by Group Captain Maluk Singh VSM, touched down Uvda Air Force Base in southern Israel last week. 

Air forces from nine countries kicked-off the Israeli Defence Force's (IDF) Blue Flag event on Sunday. Teams from United States, Greece, Poland, France, Italy, Germany and an eighth country unidentified nation are participating in the aerial exercise.

The IAF sent a C-130J Super Hercules military transport aircraft along with Garud commandos. Other countries have sent transport planes, fighter jets, refuelling aircrafts.

“The exercise would provide a platform for sharing of knowledge, combat experience and in improving operational capability of the participating nations,” said the Defence Ministry.

The Blue Flag, which started in 2013, is military aviation exercise. This year, the focus is on scaling back time taken by planes to fly into areas they will operate “in order to not interfere with civilian flights to Eilat,” the army said.

The IDF tweeted a video to give an overview of this year's exercise: 

#BlueFlag2017 - It's going to be bigger and better pic.twitter.com/RkQkQ0PmQn

— Israeli Air Force (@IAFsite) November 2, 2017

A total of 50 aircrafts are participating in the event to test their combat readiness in simulated actions in which the IDF’s Red Squadron will play the role of an enemy force. There'll over 300 training sorties in the exercise.