Nine aircraft. Less than five metres between them. Any one pilot's error is nine aircraft's problem.
The Suryakiran Aerobatic Team (SKAT) of the Indian Air Force flew over Meerut for the first time on 19 and 20 September 2026. More than 1 lakh people attended across the two days, including students, NCC cadets and NSS volunteers. Raksha Rajya Mantri Shri Sanjay Seth witnessed the display on 20 September. Three members of the team, including two of the display pilots, are from Meerut.
The team
SKAT was established in 1996. It is the only nine-aircraft aerobatic team in Asia and among a small number of such teams anywhere in the world — most national display teams fly six or seven.
In roughly thirty years it has flown more than 800 displays, in India and abroad, including international air shows in China, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Thailand, Singapore, the UAE and Dubai. The team is described as the 'Ambassadors of the Indian Air Force', and its stated purpose beyond the display itself is recruitment-adjacent: showing young people the professionalism, precision and discipline of the Service at first hand.
The Meerut display came under the Seva Sankalp Abhiyan, and the team had just concluded its 2026 training season, unveiling a new formation.
The aircraft, which a candidate has met before
SKAT flies nine red-and-white Hawk Mk 132 aircraft, licence-manufactured in India by Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL).
That is the same aircraft type that constitutes Stage III — Advanced in the Indian Air Force's three-stage fighter pilot training pipeline: PC-7 Mk II for basic, HJT-16 Kiran for intermediate with the HJT-36 Yashas developed as its replacement, and the Hawk Mk 132 for advanced training, as set out in our piece on HAL's trainer handover to the IAF.
The choice is deliberate and worth noting. A display team flying the advanced jet trainer rather than a front-line fighter means the aircraft are already in the inventory for training, the pilots are instructors or experienced aircrew familiar with the type, and no combat airframe hours are consumed on displays. Most air forces make the same calculation for the same reason.
The smoke is Indian. The Hawk Mk 132 aircraft have undergone an indigenous modification integrating smoke pods capable of producing coloured smoke, developed at the Indian Air Force's Base Repair Depot, Nashik. This enables the team to trail saffron, white and green.
That detail is worth more than its size. A Base Repair Depot is a maintenance and overhaul establishment, not a design bureau — and a BRD developing and integrating a new capability onto an operational aircraft is in-service engineering of a kind that rarely makes headlines. Coloured smoke requires a dye that vaporises cleanly, does not damage the airframe or engine, meets airworthiness requirements, and produces a trail dense enough to read from the ground. Getting that right domestically, rather than importing pods, is a small but genuine capability.
The physics of formation aerobatics
The manoeuvres listed — the loop, the barrel roll, inverted flying and the team's signature DNA manoeuvre — are worth understanding mechanically, because aerobatics is applied physics and the NDA paper examines the underlying principles even when it does not examine the display.
The loop. The aircraft flies a vertical circle. Throughout it, the pilot experiences centripetal acceleration directed towards the centre of the loop, felt as positive g pressing them into the seat. At the top of the loop the aircraft is inverted, and the requirement is that the combination of lift and weight supplies enough centripetal force to maintain the curve — which is why a loop must be entered with sufficient speed. Too slow at the top and the aircraft stalls.
Inverted flight. The wing generates lift according to its angle of attack relative to the airflow, not according to which way up the aircraft is. Inverted, the pilot pushes the nose towards what is now "up" from the wing's perspective, holding a positive angle of attack while the airframe is upside down. The pilot experiences negative g — blood pooling towards the head — which is considerably less tolerable than positive g and is the reason inverted passes are short.
g-tolerance is the physiological limit on all of this. Under high positive g, blood is pulled towards the lower body, reducing supply to the brain and causing greying of vision, tunnel vision and eventually g-induced loss of consciousness (G-LOC). Display pilots manage this through anti-g straining manoeuvres and conditioning, and display profiles are designed to keep loadings within sustainable limits. This is exactly the material that makes circular motion, centripetal force and pressure questions in the NDA physics paper concrete rather than abstract.
The close formation itself is the hardest part and the least visible. At separations of under five metres, a pilot is flying visual references — a fixed geometric relationship between a point on their own canopy and a specific feature of the leader's aircraft — and correcting continuously with tiny control inputs. The leader flies smoothly and calls manoeuvres; every other aircraft flies the leader, not the manoeuvre. Nobody in the formation except the leader is looking at the horizon.
There is an aerodynamic hazard to it as well. Aircraft generate wingtip vortices and a turbulent wake, and a formation member flying into the leader's wake encounters sudden loss of lift and rolling moments. Formation positions are therefore chosen to stay clear of preceding aircraft's wakes, which constrains what geometries are flyable at all.
What the display is actually for
A hundred thousand people at an airfield is the point, not a by-product.
Air forces maintain display teams for three reasons, and it is worth being able to state them rather than treating the whole thing as spectacle. Recruitment — the audience at Meerut included students and NCC cadets, which is precisely the pool the Service draws from, and the presence of three team members from Meerut itself makes the career look reachable rather than abstract. Public connection — a service that is invisible between conflicts struggles to explain its budget or attract talent. Professional standards — formation aerobatics is an unforgiving discipline, and maintaining a team at that standard raises the benchmark for flying precision across the force.
The honest note to add: a display team is a real cost in aircraft hours, fuel and experienced instructor time, all of which have alternative uses in a force short of trainer capacity. The justification is the recruitment and standards return, and that is a judgement rather than a calculation. Stating it that way in an SSB interview is more persuasive than describing the manoeuvres.
🔑 Revision block
The event. Suryakiran Aerobatic Team (SKAT) displayed over Meerut for the first time, 19 and 20 September 2026, under the Seva Sankalp Abhiyan, following the team's 2026 training season. More than 1 lakh spectators, including students, NCC cadets and NSS volunteers. Raksha Rajya Mantri Shri Sanjay Seth attended on 20 September. Three team members, including two display pilots, are from Meerut.
The team. Established 1996. The only nine-aircraft aerobatic team in Asia, and among few worldwide — most national teams fly six or seven. Over 800 displays in about 30 years. International appearances in China, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Thailand, Singapore, the UAE and Dubai. Known as the 'Ambassadors of the Indian Air Force'.
The aircraft. Nine red-and-white Hawk Mk 132, licence-manufactured by HAL. Same type as Stage III — Advanced in the IAF's training pipeline (PC-7 Mk II basic → HJT-16 Kiran, with HJT-36 Yashas as replacement, intermediate → Hawk Mk 132 advanced). Using the trainer rather than a front-line fighter saves combat airframe hours.
The smoke. Indigenous smoke pods producing coloured smoke, developed at the IAF's Base Repair Depot, Nashik — a maintenance establishment, not a design bureau. Trails saffron, white and green.
Separation. Aircraft fly less than five metres apart.
Manoeuvres. Loop, barrel roll, inverted flying, and the signature DNA manoeuvre.
The physics. Loop — vertical circle; centripetal acceleration towards the centre, felt as positive g; must be entered fast enough or the aircraft stalls at the top. Inverted flight — lift depends on angle of attack relative to airflow, not on attitude; produces negative g, less tolerable than positive, hence short passes. g-tolerance — high positive g pulls blood to the lower body, causing greying, tunnel vision and eventually G-LOC; managed by anti-g straining and conditioning.
Formation flying. Pilots fly visual references against the leader's aircraft, not the horizon. Only the leader flies the manoeuvre; everyone else flies the leader. Wingtip vortices and wake turbulence constrain which formation geometries are flyable.
Why display teams exist. Recruitment · public connection · professional flying standards. Against a real cost in airframe hours, fuel and instructor time.
🎯 Practice MCQs
Q1. The Suryakiran Aerobatic Team flies which aircraft? (a) Tejas Mk1 (b) Hawk Mk 132 (c) Pilatus PC-7 Mk II (d) HJT-36 Yashas
→ (b) — licence-manufactured in India by HAL.
Q2. The Suryakiran Aerobatic Team was established in: (a) 1986 (b) 1996 (c) 2006 (d) 2016
→ (b)
Q3. SKAT is distinguished among Asian display teams by: (a) Being the oldest in the world (b) Being the only nine-aircraft aerobatic team in Asia (c) Flying supersonic fighters (d) Operating from aircraft carriers
→ (b)
Q4. The indigenous smoke pods used by SKAT were developed at: (a) HAL Bengaluru (b) DRDO Hyderabad (c) The IAF's Base Repair Depot, Nashik (d) ADA, Bengaluru
→ (c)
Q5. During a loop, the pilot experiences acceleration directed: (a) Along the direction of flight (b) Towards the centre of the loop (c) Vertically downwards at all times (d) Away from the centre of the loop
→ (b) — centripetal acceleration, felt as positive g.
Q6. An aircraft can sustain inverted flight because lift depends primarily on: (a) The aircraft's attitude relative to the ground (b) The wing's angle of attack relative to the airflow (c) Engine thrust alone (d) Air temperature
→ (b)
Q7. G-LOC refers to: (a) Ground-Level Obstacle Clearance (b) g-induced loss of consciousness (c) Guided Low-altitude Operational Control (d) Gravity-Limited Oxygen Cycle
→ (b)
Q8. In close formation aerobatics, the aircraft other than the leader primarily maintain position by: (a) Reference to the horizon (b) Visual references against the leader's aircraft (c) Automated flight control coupling (d) Ground-based radar direction
→ (b)
Q9. The Hawk Mk 132 serves in the Indian Air Force's training pipeline at: (a) Stage I — Basic (b) Stage II — Intermediate (c) Stage III — Advanced (d) Operational conversion only
→ (c)
Q10. Consider the following statements about formation aerobatics: 1. Wake turbulence and wingtip vortices constrain which formation geometries are flyable. 2. Negative g is generally better tolerated by pilots than positive g. Which is/are correct? (a) 1 only (b) 2 only (c) Both 1 and 2 (d) Neither 1 nor 2
→ (a) — negative g is considerably less tolerable, which is why inverted passes are kept short.
📋 How this gets asked (PYQ pattern)
This story is unusually efficient for NDA preparation because it pays in two separate papers, and the physics half is the more reliable of the two.
In General Science, the relevant content is circular motion and its consequences. A loop is uniform circular motion in a vertical plane, which is a standard problem type: centripetal force, the condition for maintaining the circle at the top, and the apparent weight felt by the pilot. Candidates who have seen this only as a formula applied to a stone on a string will find it easier to reason about once attached to an aircraft. Lift and angle of attack belong to the same cluster, as does pressure and its physiological effects.
In General Knowledge, the questions are institutional: which aircraft the team flies, when it was established, what distinguishes it. The Hawk Mk 132 answer connects directly to the training-pipeline question, which is asked independently — so one fact serves two questions.
The organisation question is worth preparing separately. Display teams appear in questions as a set: Suryakiran flying Hawks, and Sarang, the IAF's helicopter display team flying the Dhruv. Confusing the two is a common error, and the distinction is simply fixed-wing against rotary.
The establishment-type question is a subtler one worth noting. A Base Repair Depot is a maintenance and overhaul unit; HAL manufactures; ADA designs; DRDO develops. Questions that ask who did what with a piece of equipment are testing that chain, and a BRD developing a modification is the kind of specific fact that rewards having read rather than skimmed.
Preparing for the NDA? Air displays are a physics question in disguise — circular motion, angle of attack and g-tolerance are all examinable, and the aircraft type links straight to the training pipeline. Build the base with our NDA study material on science, follow the daily NDA current affairs, and prepare with our faculty in the upcoming Cavalier courses in Delhi.
✍️ Written by Col Vijyanat Thakur — Defence studies & general studies faculty at The Cavalier. Reviewed by the Cavalier Faculty Desk.