New Delhi Bureau. The government has cleared the name of the Indian Air Force’s next chief. Air Marshal Ashutosh Dixit, the current Vice Chief of the Air Staff, has been appointed the 29th Chief of the Air Staff. He will take charge as Air Chief Marshal on the afternoon of 31 October 2026, when the present chief, Air Chief Marshal Amar Preet Singh, retires from service. The announcement sets the stage for the Air Force’s next phase of modernisation under new leadership.
Dixit is a fighter-stream pilot with nearly four decades of service behind him. Commissioned into the IAF on 6 December 1986, he is an experimental test pilot and a qualified flying instructor with more than 3,500 hours of flying experience. Over his career he has flown the Mirage-2000, several MiG variants, the Jaguar and the indigenous Tejas, besides the HPT-32, An-32, Avro, Kiran, IL-78 and Hawk aircraft.
From Kargil’s ‘Operation Safed Sagar’ to ‘Operation Sindoor’
According to ANI, Dixit played an active role in Operation Safed Sagar during the Kargil conflict, as well as Operation Rakshak, the Cope India exercises and the recent Operation Sindoor. An alumnus of the National Defence Academy, he also trained at the Defence Services Staff College in Bangladesh and the National Defence College in New Delhi.
An Indian Air Force Mirage-2000 flies alongside a US Air Force F-15 over the Himalayas during a Cope India exercise. Dixit has flown in Cope India drills and commanded a Mirage-2000 squadron. (Photo: US Air Force / Wikimedia Commons, public domain)
Key Commands and a Push for Indigenous Aircraft
Dixit has commanded a Mirage-2000 squadron, a forward fighter base in the western sector and a fighter training base in the southern sector. Before becoming Vice Chief, he served as Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief of the Central Air Command and as the Chief of Integrated Defence Staff (CISC). Reports describe him as a strong proponent of taking home-grown aircraft programmes, including the indigenous Tejas, forward in the Air Force — and his tenure is expected to give fresh momentum to the ‘Aatmanirbharta’ (self-reliance) drive in defence.
For outstanding service, Dixit has been decorated with the Vayu Sena Medal (2006), the Vishisht Seva Medal (2011), the Ati Vishisht Seva Medal (2023) and the Param Vishisht Seva Medal (2026).
Source: PTI
