As the name for the Light Combat Helicopter is about to be unveiled, we might want to remember how this naming convention came about. 21 Aircraft have had Indian names between 1954 and today, for varied reasons but three clear patterns. A study… (1/10)
The first ever ac to be renamed was the Dassault MD 450 Ouragan. Acquired in Oct 53, it was renamed “Toofani” by March 54 presumably to avoid confusion in verbal & written communication due to its tongue-twister name. Toofani is a literal translation of Ouragan (Hurricane). 2/
Another set of names were given by HAL to the aircraft manufactured by them starting with Marut (HF-24), Chitra (Avro), and Chetak (Alouette ) amongst others, perhaps to register IP or just to reflect the theme of home grown. 3/
In early 81, Air Mshl S Bhojwani (then Sqn Ldr) in his role with Dte of Ops was helping with the acquisition of MiG-23/27. He realized a practical challenge in communication as everything was referred to as “MiG”. IAF till then had only had the MiG-21 in its inventory. 4/
“I recall that at least once the wrong fighter type was routed for an exercise due to imprecise identification of which MIG type was to be tasked!”, and thus germinated the idea in his mind to rename types just like RAF had done with the Tornado. 5/
The file with the idea moved in the corridors of Air HQ for about 3 months. Bhojwani was preparing a list, in addition to Hindi/Sanskrit words for wind, thunder, lightning, etc. He got names from a book meant to help parents choose a moniker for their new bornchild. 6/
The CAS (Dilbagh Singh) approved the names for MiG-21/23/25/27 but requested MoD to opine too. MoD suggested why not name all the ac in the inventory & not just the MiG series. It was thereafter decided, to rename all ac, with the exception of those about to retire. 7/
As a result. the CAS chose to name Mi-8 as Pratap, Jaguar as Shamsher, An-32 and IL-76 were called Sutlej and Gajraj respectively. A letter was issued around end-1982 giving the new aircraft names. At induction in 1985 Mirage 2000 became Vajra and MiG-29 was named Baaz. 8/
IAF adopted the new name for all communication, but it threw a challenge as the names were not well understood by foreign vendors. Perhaps due to this confusion that some time in the 90s the naming of aircraft was dropped. Do-228, Su-30MKI, and Embraer don’t have a name. 9/
Therefore the only lasting pattern remains HAL mfged aircraft – LCA is Tejas and now LCH will be renamed. But Rafale does not carry an Indian name (10/10)
Originally published on Twitter
Leave a Reply