Shillong, Oct 1: Air Marshal Raghunath Nambiar took over as the Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief of the Eastern Air Command of the Indian Air Force at a ceremony here on Monday.

Air Mshl is an alumnus of the National Defence Academy and was commissioned in the IAF as Fighter Pilot in June 1981. He is an Experimental Test Pilot and has flown 42 types of aircraft as Pilot in Command. He has the distinction of having the highest number of flying hours on the Mirage-2000 in the IAF with over 2300 flying hrs on the aircraft to his credit, and overall 5,100 hrs of flying experience.

He is a member of the Society of Experimental Test Pilots and was the Project Test Pilot for the Light Combat Aircraft “Tejas”.

He had earlier served in Shillong as Senior Air Staff Officer (SASO).

Before taking over as the AOC-in-C of EAC, he was the Deputy Chief of the Air Staff.