Ambala’s airfield predates the Indian Air Force by more than a decade. English Wikipedia records an airstrip here by 1919 and a Royal Air Force Flying Instruction School, and says No. 28 Squadron RAF was reformed at Ambala on 1 April 1920.

The station became a permanent headquarters on 1 April 1938, and in June that year No. 1 Squadron of the Indian Air Force moved in. After partition in 1947 Ambala stayed in India; Wikipedia describes it as independent India’s first IAF station. It is now run by No. 7 Wing. The station’s exact opening date and the RAF units between the wars are given here as Wikipedia gives them; they were not checked against RAF records for this dataset.

Partition put the Pakistani border about 200 km away, and Ambala was attacked in both of the big India–Pakistan wars. Wikipedia’s station article records Pakistani air attacks in 1965 and 1971 and notes that the two sides’ claims about damage do not agree; no loss figure is given here for that reason.

The 1971 raid is better documented. At 17:30 on 3 December 1971 the Pakistan Air Force opened the western war with Operation Chengiz Khan, a pre-emptive strike on a list of Indian airfields that included Ambala, Agra, Amritsar, Pathankot, Halwara and Srinagar. Wikipedia’s account of the operation, citing Indian and contemporary sources, says there was no material damage to most of the airfields; only the runways at Amritsar were cratered, and Indian aircraft were dispersed in hardened shelters. Pakistani accounts describe the strike as an attempt to gain air superiority in the west. India counter-attacked Pakistani bases the same night.

No. 17 Squadron is the unit that made Ambala famous. The Press Information Bureau’s history, issued for its resurrection in 2019, says it was formed at Ambala on 1 October 1951 under Flight Lieutenant D. L. Springett with Harvard IIBs (Wikipedia says Adampur). It took Vampires in 1955, Hunters in 1957 and MiG-21Ms in 1975, flew in the Goa operation of 1961 and in the wars of 1965 and 1971, and received its Colours from President R. Venkataraman in 1988.

In 1971 the squadron’s Hunters, led by Wing Commander Narinder Chatrath and operating from Hasimara in the east, attacked Kurmitola airfield near Dhaka; Chatrath was credited by India with one of two PAF Sabres in a fight there and received the Vir Chakra. In 1999, during Operation Safed Sagar in Kargil, it was commanded by Wing Commander B. S. Dhanoa, who as Chief of the Air Staff presided over its resurrection twenty years later.

The squadron was number-plated in 2016 when its MiG-21s went, and brought back at Ambala in September 2019 as the first Rafale squadron. The PIB release is dated 10 September 2019; Wikipedia gives 11 September.

India’s 36 Rafales were split between Ambala and Hasimara in the east, where No. 101 Squadron formed in July 2021. The first five were handed over in France on 27 July 2020 and flown to Ambala; the arrival date of 29 July 2020 is widely reported but was not confirmed from an official source for this page. The last aircraft of the order was delivered in April 2022, according to Wikipedia.

Ambala has since become the showcase base. On 29 October 2025 President Droupadi Murmu, the Supreme Commander of the armed forces, flew a sortie of about 25 minutes in a Rafale from the station, received a guard of honour and was met by the Chief of the Air Staff, Air Chief Marshal A. P. Singh; she had flown a Su-30MKI from Tezpur in April 2023. English Wikipedia also says the Mirage 2000s of the 2019 Balakot strike launched from Ambala, but another Wikipedia article names Gwalior and the IAF has not said; the claim is therefore not adopted here. A civil enclave, whose foundation stone was laid in October 2023, is being built alongside the military airfield.