IAF chief AP Singh takes final flight in Tejas, the fighter jet he once helped test

Air Chief Marshal AP Sinfh at the Jodhpur Air Force Base, where he flew his last sortie in a fighter aircraft. (Image credit: IAF MCC)Air Chief Marshal AP Singh flew his last fighter sortie on Monday, taking the indigenous Tejas light combat aircraft over Jodhpur during Exercise Tarang Shakti 2026, ahead of his retirement on October 31. The Indian Air Force described the flight in a social media post as a defining moment in a career shaped by a passion for flying and a commitment to serving the nation. According to the IAF, the Chief flew alongside aircraft from friendly foreign countries and the Suryakiran Aerobatic Team during the multinational exercise. The force added that his service to the nation would continue beyond his flying career, and its message ended with the line that a fighter pilot is always a fighter pilot.Tarang Shakti 2026 was held at Air Force Station Jodhpur from September 26 to October 12 under the theme Power in Partnership. The exercise brought participating air forces together for joint training and aerial manoeuvres, with the aim of showcasing operational capabilities and improving interoperability.ACM Singh's association with the Tejas goes back to his years as a test pilot. The IAF chief was commissioned into the force on December 21, 1984 and is a qualified flying instructor and an experimental test pilot. By the time he became chief in September 2024, he had more than 5,000 hours of flying experience across fixed-wing and rotary-wing aircraft. He commanded No 22 Squadron, then equipped with the MiG-27, led the MiG-29 Upgrade Project Management Team in Moscow, and served as Chief Test Pilot at the Aircraft and Systems Testing Establishment.The IAF chief has been the Project Director (Flight Test) at the National Flight Test Centre in Bengaluru, where he was tasked with flight testing the Tejas. The Aeronautical Development Agency (ADA) leads the programme's design and development, while Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) is the principal production partner, and the IAF provides operational requirements, pilots and user evaluation. That background gives weight to his public criticism of HAL over delivery delays, which came from a chief with direct experience of the aircraft's testing and with a fighter fleet short of squadrons. He has also flown the MiG-21 and is the last IAF chief to have done so, a tradition begun by Air Chief Marshal AY Tipnis after a surge in crashes that began in the late 1990s.Air Marshal Ashutosh Dixit, currently the Vice Chief of the Air Staff, has been appointed the next Chief of the Air Staff in the rank of Air Chief Marshal, with effect from the afternoon of October 31. On October 9, Singh spoke at a seminar hosted by the Centre for Aerospace Power and Strategic Studies, held in connection with the exercise and the force's 94th anniversary. Recalling that the IAF began in 1932 with four Wapiti aircraft, he said it had grown into one of the world's major air forces.