The Central Air Command (CAC) is one of six Major Commands in the

Pakistan Air Force The Pakistan Air Force (PAF) (; ) is the aerial warfare branch of the Pakistan Armed Forces, tasked primarily with the aerial defence of Pakistan, with a secondary role of providing air support to the Pakistan Army and Pakistan Navy when re ...

, reporting to the Air Headquarters at

Islamabad Islamabad (; , ; ) is the capital city of Pakistan. It is the country's tenth-most populous city with a population of over 1.1 million and is federally administered by the Pakistani government as part of the Islamabad Capital Territory. Bu ...

. It is the forefront command of the PAF which handles operational activities near the Indian borders in Pakistan's

Punjab Punjab (; ; also romanised as Panjāb or Panj-Āb) is a geopolitical, cultural, and historical region in South Asia. It is located in the northwestern part of the Indian subcontinent, comprising areas of modern-day eastern Pakistan and no ...

province. Central Air Command is headquartered at PAF Base Lahore in the provincial capital of

Lahore Lahore ( ; ; ) is the capital and largest city of the Administrative units of Pakistan, Pakistani province of Punjab, Pakistan, Punjab. It is the List of cities in Pakistan by population, second-largest city in Pakistan, after Karachi, and ...

. CAC is commanded by a senior PAF officer known as the "Air Officer Commanding" or "AOC", who is of Air Vice Marshal rank.

History

During the Indo-Pakistani wars like the 1965 War and the 1971 War, Indian attacks and invasions were focused towards the central parts of Pakistan. Hence to centralize operations in the theatre, Central Air Command (CAC) was established by the PAF in July 1982. While initially headquartered in the building of Combat Commander's School at PAF Base Sargodha, it was shifted to a new location at the base of the Kirana Hills Site where it stayed for 20 years. In 2007, the command was transferred to its current location at PAF Base Lahore where it received a new office at the old terminal of the Lahore Airport by November 2018.

Components

The command controls various PAF bases which have squadrons equipped with F-16s,

JF-17 The CAC/PAC JF-17 Thunder (), or FC-1 ''Xiaolong'' (), is a fourth-generation, lightweight, single-engine, multirole combat aircraft developed jointly by the Pakistan Aeronautical Complex (PAC) and Chengdu Aircraft Corporation (CAC) of China. ...

s, Mirage IIIs, Mirage Vs and

Dassault Falcon 20 The Dassault Falcon 20 is a French business jet developed and manufactured by Dassault Aviation. The first business jet developed by the firm, it became the first of a family of business jets to be produced under the same name; of these, both t ...

s. It also commands the largest Dassault Mirage fleet in the world. *

PAF Base Mushaf Pakistan Air Force Base Mushaf or more simply PAF Base Mushaf (formerly PAF Station Sargodha and PAF Base Sargodha), ) is a Pakistan Air Force airbase situated at Sargodha in Punjab, Pakistan. It is designated as a "Major Operational Base" (MOB ...

** No. 38 Wing * PAF Base Rafiqui ** No. 34 Wing * PAF Base Lahore * PAF Base Sakesar * Ghazi Airbase

Published sources

* Pakistan Air Force, ''The Story of the Pakistan Air Force 1988-1998: A Battle Against Odds'', Islamabad: Shaheen Foundation, 2000 * Pakistan Air Force, ''The Story of the Pakistan Air Force: A Saga of Courage and Honour'', Islamabad: Shaheen Foundation, 1988 * Warnes, Alan, ''The Pakistan Air Force 1998-2008: A New Dawn'', 2009

References

{{Pakistan Air Force main Pakistan Air Force Pakistan Air Force commands

History

Components

See also

Published sources

References