Air Marshal Narayan Menon (Retd), PVSM, UYSM, AVSM
(Retd) was born in 1944 in Kannur, Kerala and moved to Delhi
at an early age and studied in Modern School, Barakhamba
Road. An alumnus of National Defence Academy, Pune, he was
commissioned in the IAF on 25 December 1964. A Qualified
Flying Instructor and a Fighter Combat Leader, he has flown a
variety of fighter aircraft, including Hunter, Gnat, Sukhoi-7,
MiG-21 variants and twin-seater aircraft Jaguar, MiG 23 and
MiG 29. He has extensive war experience and flew 18 strike
missions against targets in Pakistan in Sukhoi-7 fighter-bomber
aircraft in December 1971. While part of an IAF training team
in Iraq, he trained Iraqi pupils on L-39 and Su-7 aircraft. Air
Marshal Menon has commanded a MiG-21 fighter squadron, an
IAF training base and two fighter stations. He was the Air
Officer Commanding J&K during the Kargil operations. The Air
Marshal is an alumnus of College of Defence Management,
Secunderabad and National Defence College, New Delhi. He has
attended courses at IIM Bangalore and IIM Calcutta and has
attended an International Security seminar at Harvard
University. He has led IAF teams to Russia and Germany to
participate in International Air Shows. He superannuated in
2004 as the Air Officer in charge Personnel, Air HQ. As
President of Special Olympics Bharat Karnataka for five years
from 2009 to 2014, he was involved with training 'Intellectually
Disabled' people in sports disciplines. Having settled down at
Bengaluru after retirement, he writes regularly for professional
magazines and newspapers.
