Warbirds of India

This derelict fuselage of a Devon is found at the MT section at Yelahanka airbase. Pic Courtesy : Simon Watson

To the north of Bangalore, on the Hyderabad highway is the Air Force Station at Yelahanka. Yelahanka had a long history dating back to the Second World War, when a number of Spitfires, Mosquitos and other aircraft were based there.

After Independence, the airfield came under the purview of Training Command which soon established the No.2 Transport Training Wing to provide training on Dakotas. Over the years, the No.2TTW was merged with No.1 TTW at Begumpet and a single Transport Training Wing was established here. The airfield was briefly renamed the Air Lift Forces Training Establishment but reverted back to AFS Yelahanka in a short while.

Today the airfield operates An-32s, HS748s, Do228s as part of TTW. It also plays host to No.112 Helicopter Unit and its Mi-8s which are used for Helicopter training.The derelict fuselage of a Devon can be found in the MT Area in the Yelahanka airbase. The serial number of the Devon is quite faded but it is believed to be HW-203. The fuselage is in pretty bad condition as can be seen from the photograph. This is the third Devon airframe in Bangalore area.

However its recent status is not known. An Iskra was installed at Yelahanka as a aircrew memorial in 2005.  The airfield also has an An-32 fuselage that is rigged as a cockpit procedures trainer. The identity of this An-32 is not known.

A surprise discovery at Yelahanka came up in 2005 when Google Earth released high resolution imagery of the airfield. It appeared that there was actually a Douglas DC-3 preserved at the airfield - and this was unknown even to the Air Force authorities. A quick check revealed that the DC-3 was not in the airfield but at an adjacent BSF training facility, whose perimeter at one point juts deep into the AFS Yelahankas area.