Air Chief Marshal PV Naik takes over as new IAF chief
02 Jun 2009
New Delhi: Air Chief Marshal Pradeep Vasant Naik assumed office as the new chief of the Indian Air Force (IAF) here on Sunday taking charge from Air Chief Marshal Fali Homi Major.
ACM Naik is a graduate of Sainik School Satara, the National Defence Academy, the Defence Services Staff College and the National Defence College.
Commissioned into the fighter stream of the IAF in 1969 he has had a long distinguished career spanning 40 years. He has flown all MiG-21 variants and MiG-23-BNs.
He has held many important command and staff appointments including commanding a MiG-21 Bis squadron at Pathankot in Punjab. He was the chief operations officer at Air Force Station Bareilly in Uttar Pradesh.
He has also commanded Air Force bases in Srinagar and Bidar in Karnataka.
Apart from these, he has been a directing staff at the Tactical Air Combat Development Establishment (TACDE) as well as the Defence Services Staff College, the National Defence Academy, air officer commanding-in-chief (AOC-in-C) of the Western Air Command and air defence commander of South Western Air Command.
He is also a qualified flying instructor. He had been functioning as the vice chief of the air staff prior to taking over the chief of air staff.
For distinguished service, Air Chief Marshal Naik was awarded the Vishisht Seva Medal (VSM) on January 26, 2003, and also appointed honorary ADC to the President in July 2007.