More highways to double as airstrips

Vijay Mohan in Chandigarh

HIGHWAYS multitask as defence assets. In a growing realisation, Union Minister of Road Transport and Highways Nitin Gadkari recently said India is constructing 17 highways in border areas. Stretches of these roads can be used as runways for aircraft during an emergency.

While highway airstrips have been around in other parts of the world since World War II, this is a relatively new concept in India.

India's plans to develop highway airstrips got wings when a Mirage-2000 successfully test-landed on the Yamuna Expressway in Uttar Pradesh on May 21, 2015.

A highway airstrip is a section of a highway or expressway that is specially built to allow aircraft to land and take-off. Though primarily conceptualised for military operations during a war, these highway airstrips can also be used by fixed-wing aircraft in peacetime for disaster management, relief operations, casualty evacuation and even rapid deployment of security forces.

The Indian Air Force wants to expand the scope for using highways as “alternative landing grounds” for war-time operations or in an emergency to cater to the local civilian populace. Deposing before Parliament's Standing Committee on Defence last year, a senior IAF officer said, "We have moved quite a bit in the past one year. We have identified stretches, which can be converted into alternative airfields, in each Command Area of Responsibility. The IAF has five operational commands.

The IAF has communicated with the Transport Ministry. Plans for road constructions have been drawn up and shared with the Commands. 

"We have finalised the required basic structure. It means what sort of stretch is required, straight stretch; what sort of alternative road and additional minimum infrastructure are required; and we have shared this with the Commands and the ministries concerned," the IAF officer stated to the lawmakers.

There are 53 regular military airfields in the country. Besides, there are several advance landing grounds, which are largely unpaved strips located in remote areas in the north and the north-east for beefing logistic support to forward areas. There are 39 disused airfields with the IAF, of which 24 have been identified for operational utilisation such as deployment of long-range vectors, radars, weapon storage areas and emergency recovery for helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft. 

The highway stretches used for aircraft operations have to be specially built with a thicker surfacing and underlying concrete support base. These should also be easily accessible to the required flying support infrastructure that has to be put in place at a short notice.

"Aircraft taking off from, let's say, a base in central or south India, would require refueling and other technical support and this is where highway strips can come in," an IAF officer said. 

Testing the flying machines

The Aeronautical Test Range (ATR), a first-of-its-kind facility in the country mandated to flight test and evaluate indigenously developed flying machines and aeronautical systems, became fully functional at Varavoo Kaval in Chitradurga district of Karnataka.

Spread over 4,090 acres and developed by the Defence Research and Development Organisation at a cost of Rs 1,300 crore, its facilities include a runway with taxi tracks, two hangars with an annexe for integration of unmanned aerial vehicles, primary and secondary radars for surveillance, air traffic control, telemetry and audio-video communication facilities.

Though the range was partially functional since December 2010, the ATR was formally inaugurated by the Minister for Defence and Finance, Arun Jaitley on May 28, 2017. It will enable DRDO to test its products such as  the naval and trainer versions of the Tejas Light Combat Aircraft, Rustom I and II UAVs and the airborne early warning and control systems, air-to-ground weapons, parachutes and aerostats, etc.