Two fighter aircrafts to be put on display at Andhra University

The TU-142 aircraft museum present in the beach road is helping in booming the tourism sector in Vizag. The space at the RK Beach Road for the museum was allocated by Andhra University in Vizag. Now, the University would be adorning two new fighter aircrafts museums at its own campus.

In regards to the proposal by the Andhra University, Air Chief Marshall, Birendra Singh Dhanao has approved to present the two phased-out aircrafts to the University. The finance and logistics for the establishment of the aircraft museums would be taken care by the Indian Air Force itself.

Out of the 4 aircrafts, Mikoyan-I-Gurevich (MIG), Dassault Ouragan (Toofani), Douglas Dakota and Folland Gnat, two would be offered to the University.

While one aircraft would be displayed next to the Mechanical Engineering Department, the other would be displayed near the central administrative block in the University. They would also serve the purpose of providing useful information to the students as well.

“Andhra University will be the first civil varsity in the country to display fighter aircrafts in the premises”, Vice-chancellor, Prof G Nageswara Rao said.

He also mentioned,”This was made possible only because of the close association of Andhra University with the Indian Air Force. We first raised the proposal with IAF officials during our first visit to the IAF headquarters back in February 2017. We put the request again before Air Chief Marshal Birendra Singh Dhanoa during his first visit to Andhra University in September last year. The process was then expedited by IAF officials and finally, we got the required approvals after meeting the stipulated conditions.”

Ujjwal Kumar Ghatak, Academic advisor to AU Defence Joint Education Programme, Ujjwal Kumar Ghatak said that the aircraft would be handed over with all parts included and would help widely in learning the subject of physics mainly in MSc and Space categories.