1942–1947: Austers, artillery spotting and a squadron split at Lahore

The Army Aviation Corps traces its ancestry to the British Air Observation Post: light aircraft flown to spot for the guns. Wikipedia dates army aviation in India to 1942, and the first RAF Air OP squadron, No. 656, reached the subcontinent in 1943. No. 659, formed at RAF Firbeck in April 1943 with Austers, came to India after the Normandy campaign and was disbanded at Lahore on 14 August 1947, its assets divided between India and Pakistan. The next day No. 1 (Independent) Air OP Flight of the Royal Indian Air Force was formed, and No. 2 Air OP Flight followed in October 1947 with five Auster Vs. From the start the arrangement was a compromise between army needs and air force ownership, and that compromise would take four decades to settle.

1947–1986: Air OP flights in four wars, and an eighteen-year argument

Through the 1960s and 1970s the Air OP flights flew Austers, then HAL’s own Pushpak and HAOP-27 Krishak, and later helicopters. Wikipedia credits them with operations in the Rann of Kutch and other sectors in 1965 and again in 1971. Helicopters changed the job: HAL assembled the first Indian SA 315B Lama, the Cheetah, which flew on 6 October 1972, and the Alouette III-based Chetak, and from then on reconnaissance and observation became as much about lifting men and supplies as directing fire. The army asked for its own air corps in April 1968, again in February 1977 and through a study group in 1981. The Army Aviation Corps was finally formed on 1 November 1986, with Brigadier, later Major General, Atma Singh as its first head. Most of the IAF’s Chetaks were transferred to the army the day it was formed. Its motto is Suvega va Sudridh, Swift and Sure.

1986–1999: a corps on the glacier, in Sri Lanka and at Kargil

The new corps went straight into hard places. On the Siachen glacier, held by India since Operation Meghdoot in April 1984 and contested by Pakistan, its Cheetahs and Chetaks flew in supplies, flew out the injured and directed artillery fire. With the Indian Peace Keeping Force in Sri Lanka, Nos. 10, 26 and 31 Reconnaissance and Observation Flights supported 54 Infantry Division until the last flight left in March 1990. A unit flew more than 2,000 accident-free hours with the UN in Somalia from October 1993 to November 1994. In the Kargil war of 1999, Wikipedia says, the corps flew 3,100 sorties for the 3rd Infantry and 8th Mountain Divisions, and 663 and 666 Squadrons received unit citations. In 2004 an HAL Cheetal set a world landing record at 7,070 metres in the Himalayas.

2002–2023: the Dhruv era, and its accidents

The Dhruv Advanced Light Helicopter, an Indian design the army had wanted precisely for Siachen and Kashmir, arrived on 20 March 2002, when the first three, IA-1101 to 1103, were handed over; the Mk.3 was cleared for high-altitude flying in the Siachen sector in September 2007. The Combat Army Aviation Training School opened at Nashik Road on 1 September 2003. On 4 February 2013 the first two Rudras, armed Dhruvs with a 20 mm gun, rockets and missiles, were handed over. On 9 June 2015 Dhruvs inserted 21 Para (Special Forces) for a raid on militant camps on the Myanmar border, which India said killed about 38 insurgents and Myanmar said did not take place on its soil. But the Dhruv also brought a run of accidents: an army Dhruv crashed in Kathua in January 2021, a Rudra near the Ranjit Sagar dam in August 2021, and on 21 October 2022 a Rudra crashed in Upper Siang killing two pilots and three soldiers. After a naval Dhruv ditched in March 2023 the whole fleet of about 330 was grounded.

2021–2026: brigades, drones and attack helicopters

Since 2021 the corps has been reorganised for combat. Wikipedia records a new aviation brigade with three squadrons at Missamari in Assam in March 2021, and brigades at Leh and Jodhpur by 2023. In August 2021 all the army’s drones, including Herons, were transferred to the corps. The first squadron of the HAL Prachand light combat helicopter, 351 Army Aviation Squadron, was raised at Bengaluru on 1 June 2022 and moved to Missamari; on 28 March 2025 the Defence Ministry signed for 90 more for the army, part of a 156-helicopter, 62,700 crore rupee order. In May 2022 Captain Abhilasha Barak became the army’s first woman combat aviator. The AH-64E Apache was the long wait: six were ordered in February 2020, 451 Army Aviation Squadron was raised at Jodhpur on 15 March 2024, and the helicopters arrived in two batches of three, in July and December 2025.

What the corps has, and what it still lacks

The corps marked its 40th raising day on 1 November 2025 under its Director General, Lieutenant General Vinod Nambiar. Wikipedia counts 296 manned aircraft, but the fleet is lopsided: much of it is still Cheetahs and Chetaks of 1970s design, whose replacement, HAL’s Light Utility Helicopter, received initial clearance in February 2021 yet had only a six-aircraft army order and deliveries projected from 2026. The Dhruv and Rudra remain the backbone despite their accident and grounding record. The Prachand order will not deliver before about 2027–28, and the Russian Ka-226T meant to fill the gap, cleared in 2015 for at least 200 helicopters, was on hold by 2021 and cancelled by November 2023. The corps’ part in Operation Sindoor in May 2025 was not described in the official accounts checked, which credit the army’s artillery, drones and air defence instead.

Current fleet and orders

HAL, Boeing, General Atomics, Israel Aerospace Industries

Former fleet

Auster