Pakistan Naval Air Arm

The Pakistan Naval Air Arm ( unofficially Pakistan Naval Aviation ) is the naval aviation and naval war service arm of the Pakistan Navy. The Naval Air Arm is tasked to carry out air surveillance, limited aerial war, and reconnaissance operations. The Naval Air Arm was created after the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971 and it is designed to operate in all facets of naval operations ranging from surveillance, tracking and subsequent end of enemy units. [ 1 ] The arm besides takes separate in operations other than war such as search and rescue, casualty elimination, respite operations. [ 2 ] [ 3 ] early on in its origin the Naval Air Arm was dependent upon the Air Force and the Army to meet its training necessity of tune and ground crew. [ 4 ]

history

After the 1965 Indo-Pakistan war, the Navy attempted to established the naval air travel branch to sustain the strictly defense naval scheme of Pakistan. [ 5 ] Chief of Naval Staff Muzaffar Hassan made an unsuccessful undertake to established the air wing in the Navy, but this was impossible to achieve. [ 5 ] The lack of funds and the PAF itself objected the plans. [ 5 ] The air storm objected any attempts as the air pull saw the likely gamble of losing aircraft in open-sea operations, therefore Lieutenant-General Abdul Rahim Khan, headman of publicize staff, remains positively hostile towards the initiation of the naval publicize sleeve. [ 5 ]

geological formation

The Naval Air Arm was created after the careful analysis of Operation Trident during the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971. It was established that miss of early warning from seaward, for exemplar the absence of a naval vent surveillance capability, had allowed the indian Navy to close Karachi harbor for attacks. After studying diverse available options, the french Breguet Atlantique was selected and acquisition formalities were completed in 1974. ultimately the first squadron was raised in 1976, with three Atlantiques.

Naval Air Squadrons

On 28 September 1974, the foremost of the six Westland Sea King helicopters was besides acquired from the United Kingdom, marking the introduction of naval aviation and rotary wing aircraft in the serve. 111 Squadron was established for these circular wing aircraft. To support the Naval Air Fleet, the naval base, P.N.S. Mehran was commissioned on 26 September 1975 as Naval aviation ‘s headquarters. The base is approximately 10 kilometres ( 6.2 nautical mile ) from Jinnah Terminal. Sea King helicopters were the first machines to fly from this basis. Atlantique and Aérospatiale Alouette III helicopters soon joined the Naval Air Arm. As the formation year of 1976 coincided with 29th year of Pakistani independence, the first gear squadron of Atlantiques was named 29 ASW Squadron. In 1977, six Alouette helicopters were acquired from France leading to the formation of 333 Squadron. In 1982 Fokker F-27 Aircraft were acquired, leading to the constitution of 27 Squadron. In early 1994, three Lynx helicopters were acquired from the United Kingdom leading to the formation of 222 Squadron. In 1996, three P-3C orion aircraft were acquired from United States and were inducted into 28 Squadron of the Naval Air Arm. The delivery of these retentive scope nautical patrol aircraft had earlier been withheld due to the application of the Pressler Amendment in 1990. One of these planes was lost due to an accident while carrying out act exercises in own coastal waters on 29 October 1999.

Atlantique Incident

The Atlantique Incident was a major external incident that occurred on 10 August 1999 when a Pakistan Naval Air Arm patrol aircraft—a Breguet Atlantique with 16 personnel on board—was shot down in the molding sphere of the Kutch area by Indian Air Force jets. Pakistan and India both claimed the aircraft to be in their respective airspace. however, the wreckage fell well within Pakistani territory, giving credenza to the Pakistani claim. The Indian Air Force stated that the Atlantique was trying to return to Pakistani airspace after intruding more than 10 nautical miles ( 19 kilometer ) and as such was headed towards Pakistan. At the amphetamine of 400 knots at which the shoot-down occurred most of the wreckage could have been expected to land at least 25 miles ( 40 kilometer ) away ; the fact that all of the wreckage fell in Pakistani district would tend to vindicate Pakistani claims that the aircraft did not violate amerind airspace. This incident resulted in escalate tensions between the two neighbor countries.

Tehreek-i-Taliban fire

On 22 May 2011, Tehreek-i-Taliban attacked the PNS Mehran naval base and destroyed 2 P-3C orion aircraft. [ 6 ]

Naval Air Bases

Aircraft inventory

Unmanned aeriform Vehicles ( UAV )

UAV	Operational	Role	Quantity	Notes
UQAB-II	2010	Reconnaissance	—	UQAB-II has a range of 100 km and endurance of more than 6 hours. The aircraft can carry a 20 kg payload consisting of a gyro-stabilized Gimbal with color day camera, and a thermal imager with target tracking and locking capabilities which can transmit real time video to the aircraft’s ground control station (GCS). The UQAB’s GCS is a truck mounted air-conditioned, insulated container equipped with ruggedized consoles.[17] First squadron inducted in July 2011.[18]

Retired aircraft

Squadron	Operational	Aircraft	Role	Comments
16 Squadron	1980–1981	Grumman Albatross	SAR	Four Inherited to Navy by Air Force tasked with the SAR. It is believed that the aircraft are retired in 1981.[19]
222 Squadron Stingrays	1982–2012	Westland Lynx	Surveillance/ASW/SAR	Three helis grounded as of 2012.[20]