IAF jets may be able to land on UP road runway

LUCKNOW: A stretch of the AgraLucknow expressway in Uttar Pradesh is set to become a road runway for combat jets of the Indian Air Force (IAF), a first for military aviation in the country.

A delegation of officers from Air Force Station Bakshi Ka Talab in Lucknow will meet chief minister Akhilesh Yadav on Monday to seal a deal on the issue, an officer in the CM’s secretariat said.

The IAF presented the proposal to the state government after ascertaining details of the AgraLucknow expressway, the longest greenfield expressway in the country. The IAF will work with state government officers to select a nearly three-kilometre segment that can be turned into an airstrip. The IAF will also bear the cost of the project. Chief secretary Alok Ranjan and officers of the Uttar Pradesh Expressways Industrial Development Authority will also attend Monday’s meeting.

Sources said the segment to be used as a road runway will have to be straight, level and located on non-undulating ground without any slope. “We have land as wide as 110 metres and the width of the expressway will be over 50 metres, which is wider than normal airstrips,” said the officer in the CM’s secretariat. The road runway segment will not have electricity poles, masts or mobile phone towers. There will be portable ground lighting systems that can be quickly placed on the roadsides to guide aircraft during landings.

China, Pakistan, Sweden, Germany and Singapore are among the countries that have road runways, but this will be a first for India. Road runways assume importance if airbases are crippled during hostilities.

The 308-km Agra-Lucknow expressway is expected to cost ` 13,000 crore. It will pass through Firozabad, Shikohabad, Mainpuri, Etawah, Kannauj and Mohanlalganj. WHAT IS A ROAD RUNWAY? A highway strip or road runway is a section of highway or motorway specially built to allow the landing of combat jets and military transport aircraft and to serve as an auxiliary airbase.

They are built to allow military aircraft to operate even if airbases, among the most vulnerable targets in hostilities, are destroyed.

The first highway strips were built near the end of World War II in Germany.