Vayu Shakti-2010 saw the participation of 107 aircraft including MiG-21 Bison, MiG-27 UPG, MiG-29, Mirage-2000, Su-30 MKI, Jaguars, AN-32, IL-76, Mi-17 1V, Mi-35 gunships. The other unseen force multipliers included IL-78 mid-air refuellers, AWACS and UAVs.

In a breathtaking display of rapid air power dominance in a representative battlefield area, the Indian Air Force (IAF) aircraft blasted away targets by day, dusk and night in a fire power demonstration exercise, Vayu Shakti-2010, at its live armament firing ranges at Pokharan.

The dusk and night phase display on February 28 was the first ever by the IAF, wherein107 aircraft including MiG-21 Bison, MiG-27 UPG, MiG-29, Mirage-2000, Su-30 MKI, Jaguars, AN-32, IL-76, Mi-17 1V, Mi-35 gunships participated. The other unseen force multipliers included IL-78 MKI mid-air refuellers, AWACS and UAVs.

President and Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, Pratibha Devisingh Patil was the chief guest at the display. The others present included Defence Minister A.K. Antony, Minister of State for Defence Dr M.M. Pallam Raju, Marshal of the IAF Arjan Singh, three Service Chiefs, senior MOD officials, 28 military attachés of various countries, and journalists.

Vayu Shakti-2010 firepower demonstration (FPD) was a collective display of skills and accuracy in weapon delivery by pilots at the end of their training year. The exercise was also meant to serve as an aid for commanders and planners to gain better insight into the potential and deployment capabilities of aerial weapons.

The success of the FPD was the result of thorough operational, logistical and administrative planning par excellence by IAF commanders. Even though futuristic battlefield scenarios are expected to be increasingly complex, the IAF exercise proved that it could accomplish any complex mission objective with panache and deadly accuracy.

Mission planning remains in the forefront of all IAF operations. The FPD demonstrated intricate mission planning success achieved through the Integrated Command Air Tasking System (I-CATS), a mission planning system custom built for IAF. Different types of aircraft from all Commands of the IAF with varied configurations, speed and performance parameters participated in the exercise in specific time intervals while taking off from distant and different airbases.

One of the major advantages of the I-CATS is the ability to plan and de-conflict waves of strike formations. By using the collision check function, the planners can resolve traffic conflicts in large force packages as was done for the FPD.