A brief article on the origins of the IAF. Note its strength:-
1939 - 16 officers + 144 men
1945 - 1,638 officers + 26,900 men
And it struggled to find enough candidates throughout the period to attain its desired 10 squadron strength.
The invention of the aircraft in 1903 added a new element to warfare. Now to maintain the balance of military power, the states needed air power also. India was introduced to the aeroplane in 1910. Subsequently, RAF Squadrons came to India for operations in
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More generally a very brief history of civil aviation in India.
The world’s first airmail service was started in India at Allahabad; on 18th Feb 1911 the occasion of Kumbh mela.This in turn led the beginning of civil aviation in Ind
The birth of Indian civil aviation (as opposed to aviation in India) was in 1927 with the creation of a Directorate of Civil Aviation and the Royal Aero Club of India and Burma Ltd. The Bombay Flying Club, the first in India, was only formed in 1928. The first Indian air line, Tata Air Services, was formed in 1932 and became Air India after independence.
General look at some Indian civil aviation highlights:-
The world’s first airmail service was started in India at Allahabad; on 18th Feb 1911 the occasion of Kumbh mela.This in turn led the beginning of civil aviation in Ind
Note that the Aero Club took two years to issue its first pilots licence (to JRD Tata later founder of Tata Air Services) and only issued 746 in the 10 years between 1929 and 1949 and for 6 of those it's activities virtually ceased due to WW2.
As for HAL itself, there seems to have been a connection between its formation in Dec 1940 and Indian Govt investment in April 1941 with Curtiss contracts for delivery of P-36 aircraft to China. Initially these were to be in kit form for assembly by CAMCO in China. After assembly of a handful in China the contract ended up with HAL in Bangalore who also assembled an unknown number which may have ended up in RAF hands in 1942. I'm still trying to fathom out the detail of that.
In terms of flying clubs, today India only has 32, only some of which date back to the 1930s. These seem to have been around the major cities like Bombay (1928), Madras (1930 initially with 11 members of which only 1 was Indian), Punjab Flying Club (1930. Northern Indian Flying Club from 1932), Hyderabad State Aero Club (1936), Karachi Aero Club (1928) etc
The flying clubs provided the core of the IAF Volunteer Reserve Pilots who manned the Coastal Defence Flights in WW2
<p>The Coastal Defence Flights were formed immediately after the outbreak of the Second World War. </p><p>Several RAF Units detached aircraft to form flights. Most of the CDF aircraft were obsolete types like the Wapitis, Audaxes, Blenheims etc. RAF and Indian Air Force Volunteer Reserve...
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So we really are looking at the very earliest days of organised aviation in India in the 1928-32 period. Flying itself was a costly business, which by itself would preclude virtually all of the Indian population from participating. Don't get me wrong there were members of Indian origin as noted above, and enough for questions to be raised in the British Parliament in Feb 1939 about their alleged discriminatory exclusion on colour grounds from membership of British flying clubs (it was noted however that there was a govt imposed requirement that the British clubs only admit British citizens normally resident in Britain and that they had probably fallen foul of the latter point). But they were probably considerably outnumbered by Europeans. Any Britons interested in military flying would probably seek to join the RAF.