Air Marshal Ashutosh Dixit PVSM AVSM VM VSM took over as Vice Chief of the Air Staff, Indian Air Force. The Air Marshal was commissioned into the fighter stream of IAF on 06 December 1986. He is an alumnus of National Defence Academy, Defence Staff Service College (Bangladesh) and National Defence College with more than 3500 hours of flying. The Air Marshal has an extensive flying experience on various aircraft; to name a few; Mirage-2000, variants of Mig, HPT-32, An-32, Avro, Kiran, Jaguar, IL-78, Hawk and Tejas. He is an Experimental Test Pilot and a Qualified Flying Instructor. During his service career, spanning approx four decades, he has been actively involved in numerous operations and exercises viz Op-Safed Sagar, Op-Rakshak, Cope-India and Op Sindoor.