Rakesh Kumar Singh Bhadauria often known as RKS Bhadauria, Air Chief Marshal is the current Chief of the Air Staff of the Indian Air Force. He has served as a Commander of a Jaguar Squadron at a front line base in South-Western sector; Commanding Officer of Flight Test Squadron at Aircraft and System Testing Establishment; Chief Test Pilot and Project Director of National Flight Test Centre on the Tejas LCA project; Air Attache in Moscow; Assistant Chief of the Air Staff (Projects); Commandant of the National Defence Academy; Senior Air Staff Officer at Central Air Command and Deputy Chief of the Air Staff, an experimental Test Pilot, a Category A qualified Flying Instructor, and a Pilot Attack Instructor. Rakesh Kumar served as Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief (AOC-in-C), Southern Air Command from 1 March 2017, succeeding Air Marshal Sunderraman Neelakantan, to 1 August 2018. Kumar also served as Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief (AOC-in-C), Training Command from 1 August 2018 after retirement of Air Marshal S R K Nair. He took office of Vice Chief of the Air Staff on 1 May 2019 after superannuation of Air Marshal Anil Khosla. Later, on 19 September 2019 he was appointed as the Chief of Air Staff.
RKS Bhadauria Bio