Group Captain Hari Nair, VM (Retd), an alumnus of National Defence Academy (63 rd Course),
was commissioned in the IAF in 1983 in the helicopter stream. He qualified as an Experimental
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Test Pilot in 1992 and graduated from the Defence Services Staff College, Wellington in 1996. He
flew the initial Dhruv (ALH) prototypes since 1992. He was the Flight Commander of a helicopter
flight operating in the Northern Sector, and commanded a helicopter unit in the Western Sector.
He then formed and commanded the first Dhruv (ALH) unit, the Sarang Display Team from 2003-
2005. He then served as Chief Operations Officer at an IAF base. He joined Flight Operations,
HAL in 2009 and was the Project Pilot for the Light Combat Helicopter, responsible for its Man
Machine Interface, expansion of its flight envelop, performance, basic stability, and handling. He
has 8000 hours of accident or incident-free flying.
