India’s First Flypast Ceremony | Republic Day 2022

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One of the grandest flypasts took place this year on the newly renovated Rajpath. There will be 75 aircraft from the three services – the Indian Air Force, Navy and the Army were part of this year’s Republic Day Parade in line with the Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav celebrations. Let us take a moment and look back at the first flypast of the Republic Day celebration.

Squadron Leader Idris Hasan Latif was leading the first flypast at India’s first Republic Day celebrations held in 1950 seeing which Delhi was mesmerized. Latif later became the first Muslim chief of the Indian Air Force. He joined the Royal Indian Air Force in 1941 at the age of 18 in pre-independent India. After retiring in 1981, he was appointed as the Governor of Maharashtra and also as the  Ambassador of India to France. 

There is a road named Latif Road near Parade Ground in Delhi Cantt. Delhi had never before seen fighter planes performing acrobatics in front of them. Latif was then the squadron leader. He and his fellow Hawks were flying the Tempest fighter plane. Back then, the fighter planes took off from the Ambala station of the Air Force. However, practice flights were also being carried out from Delhi Safdarjung airport for Republic Day.

Originally from Hyderabad, Latif Jambaz, being a fighter pilot, was an expert in making and implementing summer policy. If India put its thumb around the neck of the Pakistani army in the 1971 war, the credit also goes to Air Chief Marshal Idris Hasan Latif. He was in the rank of Assistant Chief of Air Staff during the 1971 war. He was carrying out the important task of making a strategy to take on the enemy at the time of war. Latif was also overseeing the requirements of the flights and units of the fighter jets. Latif was posted in the Eastern Sector in Shillong when Pakistan laid down its arms. He also actively participated in the 1948 and 1965 wars against Pakistan. The modernization of the Air Force was carried out on a large scale with Latif as Air Force Chief. He persuaded the government to purchase Jaguar fighter aircraft.