Giving credence to this theory, one route that is presently frequented from the Pune airbase is to the Car Nicobar base in Andamans, which is merely 45 miles from Banda Aceh, an Indonesian island.

Nair said his squadron had already raised the benchmark for such sorties to over six hours. At an average flying speed of 900 km an hour, this means these sorties are doing up to 5,400 km, perhaps more. Having flown to a number of European destinations and even across the Atlantic, the Indian A-2-A refueling capability has already achieved a global reach, he said. The Indian government’s decision to go for a two-seater fighter was to keep each other company at the time radio silence is on.

“The Sukhois can be airborne for a maximum of nine hours at one go, with refuelling. This is borne in mind when planning the rendezvous with the IL-78s. As one IL-78 allows only three simultaneous plug-ons, the number of aircraft used in the sorties is decided by the availability of the refuellers,” Nair said.

At another level, the deep reach capability is also about having more options to locate our resources in ‘depth airfields’ such as Bangalore and Thiruvananthapuram, far removed from the critical borders, he said. “This takes on crucial significance as we keep adding more Sukhois to the existing fleet,” he said.

Meanwhile, flying the fighter aircraft in and out of Pune and across the civilian space is not difficult as the flight routes are filed a day in advance with the civil aviation authorities, Nair said. “We fly as much by night though it requires better skills. Also, we have kept a daily low-flying window of 8 a.m. to 10 30 a.m. during which time there are no civilian flights at the Pune airport,” he said.