The Vice Chief of the Air Staff (VCAS) is a statutory office held by the second-highest ranking officer of the Indian Air Force (IAF). Customarily held by a three-star air marshal, the VCAS is the senior most Principal Staff Officer (PSO) to the Chief of the Air Staff (CAS) - the professional head of the IAF. By duty, the VCAS has dual roles: in wartime, to oversee operational planning, capability build-up and force deployment during wartime; in peacetime, to act as an understudy to the CAS during peacetime.

The present VCAS is Air Marshal Ashutosh Dixit who assumed the office on 1 July 2026.

History At the time of independence of India on 15 August 1947, Air Commodore Subroto Mukerjee was appointed Deputy Air Commander, Royal Indian Air Force, in addition to being Senior Air Staff Officer (SASO) at the newly-formed Air HQ. On 15 November the same year, he was promoted to the acting rank of Air Vice Marshal.

In 1949, the RIAF was reorganised and the post was re-designated Deputy Chief of the Air Staff (DCAS). The DCAS continued to be the Deputy Air Commander. On 1 January 1963, the post of Vice Chief of the Air Staff was created and became the second-highest post of the Indian Air Force.

The office of VCAS was first held by Air Vice Marshal Diwan Atma Ram Nanda. The appointment was then in the two-star rank of air vice marshal. On 15 January 1966, the office was raised to the three-star rank of Air Marshal and Pratap Chandra Lal was promoted to the rank.

Order of Precedence The VCAS ranks at No. 23 on the Indian order of precedence, along with the Vice Chiefs of the Indian Army and Indian Navy and the Army Commanders (GOC-in-C), Naval Commanders (FOC-in-C) and Air Commanders (AOC-in-C).

The VCAS is at the Apex Pay grade (Grade 17), with a monthly pay of ₹225,000 (US$3,200).

Appointment The Vice Chief of Air staff is appointed by the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet, chaired by the Prime Minister, from among the senior general officers of the Air Force. Since the appointment is of Commander-in-Chief grade, the appointees are usually one of the Air Commanders of the six operational commands.

Unlike the Chief of Air Staff, there is no fixed term nor term limit to the position of the VCAS, although most of those appointed to the office have typically served for one or two year tenures and serve until the age of 60.

Appointees The following table chronicles the appointees to the office of the Vice Chief of the Air Staff.

No. Rank Portrait Name Assumed office Left office CAS References1Air Vice MarshalDiwan Atma Ram Nanda Air Marshal Apsy Engineer2Arjan Singh 3Pratap Chandra Lal Marshal of the Indian Air Force Arjan SinghAir Marshal 4Ramaswamy Rajaram 5Shivdev Singh Air Chief Marshal P C LalAir Chief Marshal O P Mehra6Yeshwant Vinayak Malse 7Hari Chand Dewan Air Chief Marshal H Moolgavkar8Anand Ramdas Pandit 9Devaiah Subia 10Idris Hasan Latif 11Edul Jahangir Dhatigara Air Chief Marshal I H Latif12Lal Singh Grewal 13Dilbagh Singh 14Trilochan Singh Brar Air Chief Marshal Dilbagh Singh15Jagdish Raj Bhasin Air Chief Marshal L M Katre16Prem Pal Singh Air Chief Marshal Fontaine17Subramaniam Raghavendran 18Nirmal Chandra Suri Air Chief Marshal S K Mehra19Palamadai Muthuswamy Ramachandran Air Chief Marshal N C Suri20Pondicherry Jayarao Jayakumar Air Chief Marshal S K Kaul21Pratap Rao 22Satish Kumar Sareen 23Trevor Raymond Joseph Osman Air Chief Marshal S K Sareen24Anil Yashwant Tipnis 25Prithvi Singh Brar Air Chief Marshal A Y Tipnis26Vinod Patney 27Srinivasapuram Krishnaswamy 28Satish Govind Inamdar Air Chief Marshal Krishnawamy29Michael McMahon 30Sunil Kumar Malik Air Chief Marshal S P Tyagi31Ajit Bhavnani 32B. N. Gokhale Air Chief Marshal F H Major33Pradeep Vasant Naik 34Pranab Kumar Barbora Air Chief Marshal P V Naik35Norman Anil Kumar Browne 36Krishan Kumar Nohwar Air Chief Marshal N A K Browne37Dinesh Chandra Kumaria 38Arup Raha 39Ravi Kant Sharma Air Chief Marshal Arup Raha40Birender Singh Dhanoa 41Shirish Baban Deo Air Chief Marshal B S Dhanoa42Anil Khosla 43Rakesh Kumar Singh Bhadauria 44Harjit Singh Arora Air Chief Marshal R K S Bhadauria45Vivek Ram Chaudhari 46Sandeep Singh Air Chief Marshal V R Chaudhari47Amar Preet Singh 48Sujeet Pushpakar Dharkar Air Chief Marshal A P Singh49Narmdeshwar Tiwari 50Nagesh Kapoor51Ashutosh Dixit

Notes 1.Later promoted to the post of the Chief of Air Staff.

See also Chief of the Air Staff Deputy Chief of the Air Staff Vice Chief of the Army Staff Vice Chief of the Naval Staff

References