Air Force tracks monsoon to fine-tune aircraft movement

The reason for the experiment, IAF says, is not entirely military. ‘‘The behaviour of monsoon over India has a direct bearing on its economy. The experiment is being conducted to understand the physical process responsible for the monsoon hehaviour pattern,’’ Squadron Leader R.K. Dhingra said.

The IAF has so far undertaken six missions, since the experiment started on June 13, from Saurashtra to the southern tip of the Indian peninsula. Trivedi said IAF, with a dedicated meterological branch, had been involved in multi-nation monsoon study exercises such as Monex in 1979 and Montblex in 1990-93.

But this is the first time it is modifying two Russian An-32 transport aircraft to conduct aerial experiments on atmospheric parameters such as temperature profiles, moisture content and aerosol composition.

The aircraft have been modified for digitial and video mapping of cloud and upper-air observation. The planes, Trivedi said, have been fitted with global positioning system (GPS) to correlate air observations with ground situation.