Position within the Pakistani Air Force
The Vice Chief of the Air Staff (VCAS) is the principal deputy and second-in-command of the Pakistan Air Force, reporting under the Chief of the Air Staff.[1][2] Before Mohammad Akhtar's appointment, the position was called Chief of Staff. When he took over, it was renamed Deputy Chief of Air Staff, and in 1979, it became Vice Chief of Staff, typically held by an Air Marshal, a three-star rank air force officer, who is responsible for flight safety, intelligence, procurement, public relations, and the PAF Air War College.[2]
The current VCAS is Air Marshal Hamid Rashid Randhawa.
List of Vice Chiefs of the Air Staff
Each individual listed below has held the same position, which was titled Chief of Staff (C.O.S.) from 1948 to 1964, Deputy Chief of Air Staff (DCAS) from 1964 to 1979, with the exception of Stephen Aratoon Yusaf, who served as Chief of Staff from 1969 to 1970 alongside DCAS Khyber Khan. Since 1979, the position has been titled Vice Chief of the Air Staff (VCAS).[3]
Name |
Appointment date |
Left office |
References
|
Douglas Lloyd Amlot
|
April 1949
|
July 1951
|
[4][5]
|
Haider Raza
|
20 December 1954
|
20 June 1957
|
[3]
|
Maqbool Rabb
|
21 June 1957
|
24 March 1959
|
[3]
|
M. A. Rahman
|
29 March 1959
|
25 November 1964
|
[3]
|
Mohammad Akhtar
|
26 November 1964
|
8 April 1966
|
[3]
|
Stephen Aratoon Yusaf
|
9 April 1966
|
18 April 1967
|
[3]
|
Abdul Qadir
|
19 April 1967
|
13 January 1969
|
[3]
|
Khyber Khan
|
1 February 1969
|
19 March 1970
|
[3]
|
Stephen Aratoon Yusaf
|
1 May 1969
|
28 February 1970
|
[3]
|
Eric G. Hall
|
1 April 1970
|
3 June 1972
|
[3]
|
Saeedullah Khan
|
22 June 1972
|
29 June 1973
|
[3]
|
Chaudhary Rab Nawaz
|
21 July 1973
|
12 May 1974
|
[3]
|
Michael John O'Brian
|
13 May 1974
|
31 August 1975
|
[3]
|
M. Mahmood Hasan
|
1 September 1975
|
22 July 1978
|
[3]
|
Ayaz Ahmed Khan
|
10 August 1979
|
21 July 1981
|
[3]
|
A Rashid Shaikh
|
22 July 1981
|
April 1984
|
[3]
|
Jamal A. Khan
|
April 1984
|
December 1985
|
[3]
|
Shabbir Hussain Syed
|
December 1985
|
March 1988
|
[3]
|
Farooq Feroze Khan
|
March 1988
|
December 1989
|
[3]
|
Syed Masood Hatif
|
February 1990
|
July 1993
|
[3]
|
Shafique Haider
|
July 1993
|
November 1994
|
[6]
|
Muhammad Arshad Chaudhry
|
December 1994
|
January 1997
|
[3]
|
Pervaiz Mehdi Qureshi
|
May 1997
|
November 1997
|
[6]
|
Aliuddin
|
December 1997
|
November 1999
|
[6]
|
Hifazat Ullah Khan
|
29 March 2009
|
4 October 2010
|
Tahir Rafique Butt
|
5 October 2010
|
8 June 2012
|
|
Farhat Hussain Khan
|
9 June 2012
|
9 July 2013
|
[7]
|
Sohail Gul
|
8 August 2014
|
10 April 2015
|
[8]
|
Saeed Muhammad Khan
|
11 April 2015
|
5 October 2017
|
[9]
|
Farooq Habib
|
6 October 2017
|
3 November 2018
|
[10]
|
Aasim Zaheer
|
4 November 2018
|
17 January 2020
|
[11]
|
Ahmer Shehzad Leghari
|
18 January 2020
|
19 March 2021
|
[12]
|
Syed Noman Ali
|
20 March 2021
|
20 March 2022
|
|
Muhammad Zahid Mahmood
|
21 March 2022
|
Incumbent
|
[13]
|
See also
References