President Droupadi Murmu, the Supreme Commander of the armed forces, will fly a sortie in the Rafale fighter jet at Ambala Air Force Station, Haryana, on Wednesday. Earlier, on April 8, 2023, President Murmu took a sortie in the Sukhoi 30 MKI fighter jet at Tezpur Air Force Station in Assam.” The President of India, Smt Droupadi Murmu, will visit Ambala, Haryana tomorrow where she will take a sortie in Rafale,” a statement issued on Tuesday by the Rashtrapati Bhavan said. She is the third President to undertake sortie in a fighter jet.
On June 8, 2006, A P J Abdul Kalam became the first President to fly in a fighter jet. At the age of 74, he took a 30-minute sortie in a Sukhoi-30 MKI from the Lohegaon airbase in Pune.
On November 25, 2009, Pratibha Patil became the first woman and the second President to fly a Sukhoi-30 MKI. She flew for 20 minutes from the same base in Pune. In November 2023, Prime Minister Narendra Modi flew in an indigenously developed Tejas light combat aircraft (LCA)from Bengaluru, becoming the first prime minister to fly in a fighter jet.
IAF has 36 Rafale jets manufactured by France, with one squadron based in Ambala and the other in Hasimara, West Bengal. The jets were acquired in a government-to-government deal worth over Rs 60,000 crores between India and France.
The first batch of Rafale was inducted into the IAF in September 2020 with No.17 Squadron, the Golden Arrows, at Ambala, which also happens to be the IAF’s oldest airbase.
The Rafale jets were used in Operation Sindoor, which was launched on May 7 to destroy several terror infrastructures in territories controlled by Pakistan. The strikes triggered four days of intense clashes that ended with an understanding on stopping the military actions on May 10.
Rafale jets were used during Operation Sindoor, launched by India in response to the April 22 dastardly Pahalgam terror attack.
India signed a deal with France in April 2025 to acquire 26 Rafale-M fighter jets for the Indian Navy. The agreement, which includes training, weapons, simulators, and logistics, will bring the naval variant of the fighter jet to operate from India’s aircraft carriers. The delivery of the jets is expected to start in 2028 and be completed by 2030.
