In a major relief to naval air stations, Vice Admiral Girish Luthra, FOC-in-C, Western Naval Command inaugurated the Indian Naval Air Enclave, Santa Cruz (NAE Scz) at Santa Cruz, Mumbai about a week ago.
The new Indian Naval Air Enclave has a big hangar and a large dispersal, on land owned by the Navy, adjacent to the Runway and the taxi track.
Advantages of the new Naval Air Enclave on the western seaboard:
- The facility is designed to handle all fixed-wing aircraft of the Indian Navy. It has been constructed adjacent to the main runway of the busy Chhatrapati Shivaji Intl’ Airport.
- This is a significant development from the point of view of Naval Operations, since, it now provides Indian Navy, the capability to stage through all types of fixed wing aircraft held in the Naval Inventory. This includes the highly potent and versatile Boeing P8I Long Range Maritime Reconnaissance (LRMR) aircraft.
- This gives a major boost to the surveillance and offensive measures on the areas of interest in the Western Seaboard, allowing it to counter growing presence of Chinese navy near the Pakistan border.
- P8I LRMR aircraft are presently operating from their base at Arakkonam, near Chennai. With the operationalization of the NAE at Santa Cruz, the Indian Navy can operate the P8I’s from this enclave thereby enabling them to operate for longer durations in the Arabian Sea resulting in vast area coverage.
With this, the navy now has three naval air stations in the Western theatre under its command. The remaining two are INS Garuda in Kochi and INS Hansa in Goa.
