Indian Air Force planes take part in expressway landing drill
India landed a military transport plane and 15 fighter jets on an expressway in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh Tuesday as part of trials to use roads for emergency landings.
The Indian Air Force planes took part in a three-hour-long landing drill on the Agra-Lucknow Expressway, a 302-km high-speed corridor connecting the tourist town of Agra with state capital Lucknow.
The first to land and take-off on the expressway was a 35,000-kg C-130J Super Hercules aircraft — which can carry 200 Air Force personnel — to allow a group of elite commandos to deboard and secure the makeshift landing zone.
Subsequently, some 15 fighter jets, including Mirage 2000, Jaguar and Sukhoi-30 MKI, made a touch-and-go one after the other on the expressway during the exercise.
The Sukhoi-30 MKI forms the backbone of the Indian Air Force’s fighter fleet and is capable of mid-air refuelling.
The drill ended with the C-130J Super Hercules aircraft landing again on the expressway to allow the Air Force commandoes to board the plane. Within a couple of minutes, it took off.
It’s not the first time that the Indian Air Force conducted such an exercise on roads.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMwfKsxWd-Q
On a 3.3-km stretch of the Agra-Lucknow Expressway, the Indian Air Force had landed eight fighter jets last year. And in 2015, it had for the first time landed a fighter jet on Yamuna Expressway, a high-speed road corridor connecting Delhi with Agra.
Both Agra-Lucknow Expressway and Yamuna Expressway are connected to each other and are two of India’s most modern highways.
The Indian Air Force has plans to earmark various sections of India’s highways for use as runways for combat aircraft at very short notice. Road runways are usually used for emergency landings if airbases come under attack during a war.
