The Indian Air Force (IAF) deployed in mid-July two of its five Lockheed Martin C-130J-30 military transport aircraft to Panagarh in eastern India to support Indian Army (IA) deployments along the disputed Line of Actual Control (LoAC) with China.
Official sources told Jane’s on 28 July that the three remaining C-130J-30s, which are currently based at Hindon airbase on the outskirts of New Delhi, will join the first two transports at the IAF’s Arjan Singh airbase in Panagarh by late August, thus completing the service’s first such transport squadron in the region.
The sources said that the five aircraft will be joined by a sixth one later in the year once deliveries of the six C-130J-30s ordered by the IAF in late 2013 under the US Foreign Military Sales programme are completed by the end of 2017.
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