Misplaced Pages

#772227

106-687: The first RCyAF Regiment Squadron was formed under Flt Lt Gerry W. Weeraratna in 1956 to provide ceremonial guards and security for bases and airfields of the Royal Ceylon Air Force based on the RAF Regiment of the Royal Air Force . However the ground defence of the air bases and civil airports were supplemented by the Ceylon Army . This limited the ability of the army to deploy it troops in offensive operations and made

212-557: A Zlín Z 43 of the LTTE air wing when it attempted to attack a military base in Vavuniya . In the last stages of the civil war the SLAF flew its highest number of sorties providing close air support of ground and naval forces and carried out pinpoint bombing on identified targets. It moved many of its units including fighter jets to forward air bases to increase the number of sorties. During

318-507: A ground attack by the LTTE on SLAF Anuradhapura at Saliyapura, which was supported briefly by its air wing, resulted in the destruction of eight aircraft with several others damaged. The attack only affected the SLAF's training element. Early in 2008 the air force received six F-7Gs, these are primarily used as interceptors and are attached to No.5 Jet Squadron. In October 2008 the air force claimed its first air-to-air kill, when it reported that one of its Chengdu F-7G interceptors shot down

424-468: A lexical root to which one or more affixes are attached. Most Tamil affixes are suffixes . Tamil suffixes can be derivational suffixes, which either change the part of speech of the word or its meaning, or inflectional suffixes, which mark categories such as person , number , mood , tense , etc. There is no absolute limit on the length and extent of agglutination , which can lead to long words with many suffixes, which would require several words or

530-484: A , as with other Indic scripts . This inherent vowel is removed by adding a tittle called a puḷḷi , to the consonantal sign. For example, ன is ṉa (with the inherent a ) and ன் is ṉ (without a vowel). Many Indic scripts have a similar sign, generically called virama , but the Tamil script is somewhat different in that it nearly always uses a visible puḷḷi to indicate a 'dead consonant' (a consonant without

636-759: A 2001 survey, there were 1,863 newspapers published in Tamil, of which 353 were dailies. Tamil is the primary language of the majority of the people residing in Tamil Nadu , Puducherry , (in India) and in the Northern and Eastern provinces of Sri Lanka . The language is spoken among small minority groups in other states of India which include Karnataka , Telangana , Andhra Pradesh , Kerala , Maharashtra , Gujarat , Delhi , Andaman and Nicobar Islands in India and in certain regions of Sri Lanka such as Colombo and

742-557: A bombing mission, when all bombing using transport aircraft were stopped. On 3 September 1987 a Women's Wing was formed and located in Colombo , initially tasked with administrative duties. In May 1987, the Sri Lankan military launched what make be known as Vadamarachchi Operation , its largest offensive to date. The air force mustered one HS 748, two Y-12s and one de Havilland Heron, all configured as improvised bombers. Presser from

848-481: A dedicated maritime patrol aircraft . Attention was given in 2018 to the possibility of acquiring the Lockheed P-3 Orion with assistance from Japan. In April 2019, it was reported that India was considering transferring a single Dornier 228 reconnaissance aircraft. In 2020, the SLAF has been in talks to acquire either Dornier Do228 or Beechcraft 360ER maritime reconnaissance aircraft from India and

954-519: A family of around 26 languages native to the Indian subcontinent . It is also classified as being part of a Tamil language family that, alongside Tamil proper, includes the languages of about 35 ethno-linguistic groups such as the Irula and Yerukula languages (see SIL Ethnologue ). The closest major relative of Tamil is Malayalam ; the two began diverging around the 9th century CE. Although many of

1060-633: A former Royal Australian Air Force Beechcraft KA350 King Air aircraft (registration A32-673 ) to the Sri Lankan Government in 2023 May. The SLAF has also embarked on the indigenous UAV program. The project started in 2011 with the Centre for Research and Development (CRD). The Lihiniya MK I had its first flight in April 2020. Lihiniya MK I and Lihiniya MK II were intended to be used to train and use as medium range tactical UAV System for

1166-872: A little over 1,000 officers and recruits in the 1960s. By 1970 the Provosts were in storage. The Royal Ceylon Air Force first went into combat in April 1971 when the Marxist JVP launched an island-wide insurrection on April 5. The Ceylon Armed Forces were caught off guard; police stations island-wide and the RCyAF base at Ekala were attacked in the initial wave. Responding rapidly the RCyAF deployed its limited aircraft, at first to resupply besieged police stations, military outposts and patrol around major cities. The Jet Provosts were taken out of storage and put into service within three days, carrying out attacks on insurgents. Its transports began ferrying troops and cargo cross

SECTION 10

#1732781005773

1272-537: A major, long-term security role. In 1982 the SLAF reactivated airfields at Batticaloa , Anuradhapura , Koggala and Sigiriya that had been disused since World War II , all later becoming SLAF Stations. During the First Eelam War between 1983 and 1987, the force grew by nearly 50 percent. In 1987 the air force had a total strength of 3,700 personnel, including active reserves. The Sri Lanka Air Force Regiment took over to role of ground based air defence from

1378-528: A near Block 60 standard in a deal worth US$ 49 million with Israel Aerospace Industries , with an expected service life of 15 years. The work will be done in Sri Lanka by SLAF personal over two years, with upgraded avionics and the provision for advanced radar, sensors and helmets in the future. Following the end of the war, SLAF shifted more focus on maritime patroling to counter smuggling in its territorial waters. To this extend it began looking to procure

1484-607: A number of apparent Tamil loanwords in Biblical Hebrew dating to before 500 BCE, the oldest attestation of the language. Old Tamil is the period of the Tamil language spanning the 3rd century BCE to the 8th century CE. The earliest records in Old Tamil are short inscriptions from 300 BCE to 700 CE. These inscriptions are written in a variant of the Brahmi script called Tamil-Brahmi . The earliest long text in Old Tamil

1590-671: A number of skeletons were found buried in earthenware urns dating from at least 696 BCE in Adichanallur . Some of these urns contained writing in Tamil Brahmi script, and some contained skeletons of Tamil origin. Between 2017 and 2018, 5,820 artifacts have been found in Keezhadi . These were sent to Beta Analytic in Miami , Florida , for Accelerator Mass Spectrometry (AMS) dating. One sample containing Tamil-Brahmi inscriptions

1696-518: A number of sound changes, in particular, a tendency to lower high vowels in initial and medial positions, and the disappearance of vowels between plosives and between a plosive and rhotic. Contact with European languages affected written and spoken Tamil. Changes in written Tamil include the use of European-style punctuation and the use of consonant clusters that were not permitted in Middle Tamil. The syntax of written Tamil has also changed, with

1802-797: A replacement for its Kfirs and MiG-27s. Pakistan offered the PAC JF-17 Thunder aircraft to several countries including Sri Lanka. In 2016, the Sri Lankan Government gave the green light to a programme to procure multirole combat aircraft. The programme, featuring the acquisition of between 8–12 aircraft, were to be pursued through a government-government basic agreement. In December, then Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickramasinghe said Sri Lanka received offers from China , India , Sweden and Russia and they were in progress to take final decision. By 2009 SLAF operated three FT-7, three F-7BS, six F-7G , two Kfir TC.2s, two Kfir C.7s, eight Kfir C.2s, seven MiG-27s and one MiG-23UB trainer. By 2017

1908-414: A single Kfir C2 and a single Kfir C7 have been preserved for display. In 2021, the SLAF initiated its long-awaited program for the overhaul and service life extension of several of its aging air frames. This included five Kfirs fighters, two C-130 transports, four Antonov-32 transports, three Mi-17 heavy transport helicopters and its remaining Mi-35 attack helicopters. Five Kfir C2/C7/TC2 will be updated to

2014-647: A small number speak the language. In Reunion where the Tamil language was forbidden to be learnt and used in public space by France it is now being relearnt by students and adults. Tamil is also spoken by migrants from Sri Lanka and India in Canada , the United States , the United Arab Emirates , the United Kingdom , South Africa , and Australia . Tamil is the official language of

2120-590: A special humanitarian operation transporting essential spares and accessories for repair of the desalination facility in Male from Singapore. The breakdown of the desalination facility resulted in a desperate shortage of drinking water in Male and the equipment for repair could not be flown in commercial flights, resulting in the Maldivian government requesting aid from the government of Sri Lanka. In April 2015, following

2226-610: A subject of study in schools in the French overseas department of Réunion . In addition, with the creation in October 2004 of a legal status for classical languages by the Government of India and following a political campaign supported by several Tamil associations, Tamil became the first legally recognised Classical language of India. The recognition was announced by the contemporaneous President of India , Abdul Kalam , who

SECTION 20

#1732781005773

2332-406: A variety of dialects that are all collectively known as Brahmin Tamil . These dialects tend to have softer consonants (with consonant deletion also common). These dialects also tend to have many Sanskrit loanwords. Tamil in Sri Lanka incorporates loan words from Portuguese , Dutch , and English. In addition to its dialects, Tamil exhibits different forms: a classical literary style modelled on

2438-438: A vowel). In other Indic scripts, it is generally preferred to use a ligature or a half form to write a syllable or a cluster containing a dead consonant, although writing it with a visible virama is also possible. The Tamil script does not differentiate voiced and unvoiced plosives . Instead, plosives are articulated with voice depending on their position in a word, in accordance with the rules of Tamil phonology . In addition to

2544-635: Is a Dravidian language natively spoken by the Tamil people of South Asia . It is one of the two longest-surviving classical languages in India , along with Sanskrit , attested since c. 300 BCE. The language belongs to the southern branch of the Dravidian language family and shares close ties with Malayalam and Kannada . Despite external influences, Tamil has retained a sense of linguistic purism, especially in formal and literary contexts. Tamil

2650-457: Is based on the dialect of Jaffna . After Tamil Brahmi fell out of use, Tamil was written using a script called vaṭṭeḻuttu amongst others such as Grantha and Pallava . The current Tamil script consists of 12 vowels , 18 consonants and one special character, the āytam . The vowels and consonants combine to form 216 compound characters, giving a total of 247 characters (12 + 18 + 1 + (12 × 18)). All consonants have an inherent vowel

2756-401: Is deemed unlikely by Southworth due to the contemporary use of the compound 'centamiḻ', which means refined speech in the earliest literature. The Tamil Lexicon of University of Madras defines the word "Tamil" as "sweetness". S. V. Subramanian suggests the meaning "sweet sound", from tam – "sweet" and il – "sound". Tamil belongs to the southern branch of the Dravidian languages ,

2862-563: Is extensively described in the oldest known grammar book for Tamil, the Tolkāppiyam . Modern Tamil writing is largely based on the 13th-century grammar Naṉṉūl which restated and clarified the rules of the Tolkāppiyam , with some modifications. Traditional Tamil grammar consists of five parts, namely eḻuttu , col , poruḷ , yāppu , aṇi . Of these, the last two are mostly applied in poetry. Tamil words consist of

2968-511: Is found in Tholkappiyam , which is dated as early as late 2nd century BCE. The Hathigumpha inscription , inscribed around a similar time period (150 BCE), by Kharavela , the Jain king of Kalinga , also refers to a Tamira Samghatta ( Tamil confederacy ) The Samavayanga Sutra dated to the 3rd century BCE contains a reference to a Tamil script named 'Damili'. Southworth suggests that

3074-405: Is generally taken to have been completed by the 8th century, was characterised by a number of phonological and grammatical changes. In phonological terms, the most important shifts were the virtual disappearance of the aytam (ஃ), an old phoneme, the coalescence of the alveolar and dental nasals, and the transformation of the alveolar plosive into a rhotic . In grammar, the most important change

3180-409: Is generally used in formal writing and speech. For instance, it is the language of textbooks, of much of Tamil literature and of public speaking and debate. In recent times, however, koṭuntamiḻ has been making inroads into areas that have traditionally been considered the province of centamiḻ . Most contemporary cinema, theatre and popular entertainment on television and radio, for example,

3286-410: Is in koṭuntamiḻ , and many politicians use it to bring themselves closer to their audience. The increasing use of koṭuntamiḻ in modern times has led to the emergence of unofficial 'standard' spoken dialects. In India, the 'standard' koṭuntamiḻ , rather than on any one dialect, but has been significantly influenced by the dialects of Thanjavur and Madurai . In Sri Lanka, the standard

Sri Lanka Air Force Regiment - Misplaced Pages Continue

3392-771: Is not always consistently applied. ISO 15919 is an international standard for the transliteration of Tamil and other Indic scripts into Latin characters. It uses diacritics to map the much larger set of Brahmic consonants and vowels to Latin script , and thus the alphabets of various languages, including English. Apart from the usual numerals, Tamil has numerals for 10, 100 and 1000. Symbols for day, month, year, debit, credit, as above, rupee, and numeral are present as well. Tamil also uses several historical fractional signs. /f/ , /z/ , /ʂ/ and /ɕ/ are only found in loanwords and may be considered marginal phonemes, though they are traditionally not seen as fully phonemic. Tamil has two diphthongs : /aɪ̯/ ஐ and /aʊ̯/ ஔ ,

3498-592: Is predominantly spoken in Tamil Nadu , India, and the Northern and Eastern provinces of Sri Lanka . It has significant speaking populations in Malaysia , Singapore , and among diaspora communities . Tamil has been recognized as a classical language by the Indian government and holds official status in Tamil Nadu, Puducherry and Singapore. The earliest extant Tamil literary works and their commentaries celebrate

3604-409: Is the Tolkāppiyam , an early work on Tamil grammar and poetics, whose oldest layers could be as old as the late 2nd century BCE. Many literary works in Old Tamil have also survived. These include a corpus of 2,381 poems collectively known as Sangam literature . These poems are usually dated to between the 1st century BCE and 5th century CE. The evolution of Old Tamil into Middle Tamil , which

3710-717: Is the air arm and the youngest of the Sri Lanka Armed Forces . It was founded in 1951 as the Royal Ceylon Air Force ( RCyAF ) with the assistance of the Royal Air Force (RAF). The SLAF played a major role throughout the Sri Lankan Civil War . The SLAF operates more than 160 aircraft. The Commander of the Air Force is the professional head of the Sri Lanka Air Force who holds the rank Air Marshal . The mission statement of

3816-793: Is used as one of the languages of education in Malaysia , along with English, Malay and Mandarin. A large community of Pakistani Tamils speakers exists in Karachi , Pakistan , which includes Tamil-speaking Hindus as well as Christians and Muslims – including some Tamil-speaking Muslim refugees from Sri Lanka. There are about 100 Tamil Hindu families in Madrasi Para colony in Karachi. They speak impeccable Tamil along with Urdu, Punjabi and Sindhi. Many in Réunion , Guyana , Fiji , Suriname , and Trinidad and Tobago have Tamil origins, but only

3922-501: The 4th Regiment, Sri Lanka Artillery transitioned into a field artillery role as it decommissioned its anti-aircraft guns. As in the other services, a shortage of spare parts plagued maintenance efforts, forcing the service to send a number of aircraft to Singapore and elsewhere for repairs. After the purchase of equipment from Canada in 1986, the air force gained the capability to make structural repairs on its fleet of Bell helicopters, several of which had been damaged in operations against

4028-465: The Pandiyan Kings for the organization of long-termed Tamil Sangams , which researched, developed and made amendments in Tamil language. Even though the name of the language which was developed by these Tamil Sangams is mentioned as Tamil, the period when the name "Tamil" came to be applied to the language is unclear, as is the precise etymology of the name. The earliest attested use of the name

4134-557: The Soviet Union . Air Force personnel joined in ground operations, and when the insurgents surrendered after about a month's fighting the RCyAF was in charge of three of the many rehabilitation camps setup for insurgents. In the wake of the insurrection the RCyAF established a Volunteer Force to supplement its regular carder. With Ceylon becoming a republic in 1972, the Royal Ceylon Air Force changed its name to

4240-641: The Sri Lanka Air Force along with all insignia. Because of a shortage of funds for military expenditure in the wake of the 1971 insurrection, the No. 4 Helicopter Squadron began operating commercial transport services for foreign tourists under the name of Helitours . On March 31, 1976, the SLAF was awarded the President's Colour . That same year SLAF detachments, which later became SLAF stations, were established at Wirawila, Vavuniya and Minneriya. With

4346-599: The University of Madras , was one of the earliest dictionaries published in Indian languages. A strong strain of linguistic purism emerged in the early 20th century, culminating in the Pure Tamil Movement which called for removal of all Sanskritic elements from Tamil. It received some support from Dravidian parties . This led to the replacement of a significant number of Sanskrit loanwords by Tamil equivalents, though many others remain. According to

Sri Lanka Air Force Regiment - Misplaced Pages Continue

4452-464: The earthquake in Nepal the Sri Lankan government responded by deploying relief contingents from the armed services including teams from the air force. These teams were airlifted to Nepal by a SLAF C-130 of the No. 2 Heavy Transport Squadron, which was followed by other flights carrying in aid supplies. This was the first time a SLAF aircraft has been deployed on a rescue mission to a foreign country. This

4558-400: The pre-dawn attack by the LTTE on SLAF Katunayake air base, part of Bandaranaike International Airport about 35 km north of Colombo. Three military training aircraft and five civilian jets were also among the destroyed aircraft. Many of these aircraft were later replaced. Sri Lanka's international airport has remained on alert for a repeat of the 2001 attack, with severe restrictions on

4664-491: The 11th century, retain many features of the Vaishnava paribasai , a special form of Tamil developed in the 9th and 10th centuries that reflect Vaishnavite religious and spiritual values. Several castes have their own sociolects which most members of that caste traditionally used regardless of where they come from. It is often possible to identify a person's caste by their speech. For example, Tamil Brahmins tend to speak

4770-635: The 21 Mi17 helicopters are in service. The SLAF is in the process of overhauling an additional pair of Mi17 helicopters, and purchasing 4 new Mi17 helicopters to replace worn out examples. Three of the Mi35P/Mi35V helicopters are also going to be overhauled. In 2021, SLAF announced plans to purchase two Harbin Y-12 aircraft from China. Three Antonov-32 transports were overhauled in Ukraine. Tenders were called for four secondhand Bell 206B3 helicopters for

4876-768: The British Government. By 1955, the RCyAF was operating two flying squadrons based at RAF Negombo , with one focused on training and the other on transport. The first helicopter type to be added to the service was the Westland Dragonfly . After Prime Minister S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike 's negotiated the closure of British air and naval bases in Ceylon in 1956, the RCyAF took over the former RAF stations; Katunayake and China Bay , becoming RCyAF operational stations while ancillary functions were carried out at Diyatalawa and Ekala . The RCyAF Regiment Squadron

4982-1219: The Directorate of Operations at Air Force HQ. The Sri Lanka Air Defence Command, based at SLAF Katunayake , is the SLAF command responsible for co-ordination of air and ground units to maintain integrated national air defence . National Air Defence System's main radar station situated at the Pidurutalagala tallest mountain in Sri Lanka, at 2,524 m (8,281 ft). The No. 3 Air Defence Radar Squadron uses four INDRA Mk-II 2D radar systems and USFM radars provided by India, Chinese JY-11 low/medium altitude 3D surveillance radars and CETC YLC-18 3D radars. Directorate of Air Operations . Directorate of Administration Directorate of Aeronautical and General Engineering Directorate of Electronic, IT and Communication Engineering Directorate of Logistics Directorate of Civil Engineering Directorate of ground Operations Directorate of Health Services Bell 206B Tamil language Sri Lanka Singapore Malaysia Canada and United States Tamil ( தமிழ் , Tamiḻ , pronounced [t̪amiɻ] )

5088-697: The Government of India culminated during the Vadamarachchi Operation with Indian Air Force carrying out Operation Poomalai unopposed. The Indo-Sri Lanka Accord followed and the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) landed soon after to enforce peace. The arrival of the IPKF led to the start of the 1987–1989 JVP insurrection , during which SLAF carried out areal reconnaissance against insurgents and several SLAF stations in

5194-481: The Indian state of Haryana , purportedly as a rebuff to Punjab , though there was no attested Tamil-speaking population in the state, and was later replaced by Punjabi , in 2010. In Malaysia, 543 primary education government schools are available fully in Tamil as the medium of instruction . The establishment of Tamil-medium schools has been in process in Myanmar to provide education completely in Tamil language by

5300-474: The Indian state of Tamil Nadu and one of the 22 languages under schedule 8 of the constitution of India . It is one of the official languages of the union territories of Puducherry and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands . Tamil is also one of the official languages of Singapore . Tamil is one of the official and national languages of Sri Lanka, along with Sinhala . It was once given nominal official status in

5406-605: The Migs and Kfirs have been withdrawn as only one Kfir out of seven still available (fifteen were originally procured) was serviceable and the seven surviving Mig23/27 aircraft were not operational. In March 2017, two J7GS were seen flying during the 66th anniversary of the Sri Lankan Air Force. A single J7GS and J7BS were overhauled in China, while CATIC and the air force additionally overhauled an FT7 and another J7GS at

SECTION 50

#1732781005773

5512-475: The Pucarás were lost, two to surface-to-air missiles launched by the LTTE. The sole remaining Pucará was retired in 1999 due to lack of spare parts. In 1995 Mil Mi-24 gunships were acquired for close air support for the army and by 2001 Mil Mi-35s were added to the fleet. In 1996 the SLAF acquired seven IAI Kfirs (six C.2s and one TC.2) from Israel and a further nine of these aircraft had been added to

5618-597: The SLAF Regiment frequently mounts the guard at the Presidents House . In March 2009, the SLAF Regiment was presented with the President’s Colours . SLAF Regiment officers and gunners are organized into 45 Field Wings, which are subdivided into squadrons that are and further subdivided into flights specially trained in ground combat. As conduct of operations related to ground defence is placed under

5724-641: The SLAF deployed a contingent of three Mi-17 helicopters with support personnel and equipment designated No. 62 Helicopter Flight to the United Nations Mission in the Central African Republic and Chad consisting of 122 personal. This was followed by second contingent three Mi-17 helicopters and 81 personal to United Nations Mission in South Sudan . In December 2014, SLAF C-130 of the No. 2 Heavy Transport Squadron flew

5830-564: The SLAF flew to Maldives carrying then President Gotabaya Rajapaksa into exile . In the years that followed the war, the SLAF began a program of upgrading its air fleet and looking for replacements for ageing aircraft. In 2011, two Xian MA60 passenger transport aircraft were purchased for the air force operated Helitours and two more Bell 412 have been purchased in addition to the eight already in service. In addition 14 Mi-171 helicopters are to be purchased from Russia. In 2018 May, six brand-new PT-6 training aircraft were accepted by

5936-657: The SLAF from AVIC Hongdu in Nanchang, China . These aircraft will be utilised by the No 1 Flight Training Wing at the SLAF Academy . Two of these were lost in crashes in 2020 and 2023. By 2018, the SLAF has been considering increasing its fleet of transport helicopters with new purchases of 10–14 Mi-171SH , 2 Bell 412s and 2 Bell 206s . These are intended for flight training, VIP transport and overseas deployments for UN peace keeping operations. As of May 2021 only 10 of

6042-527: The Sri Lanka Air Force is To achieve professional excellence in rapid mobility and precision engagement by developing core capabilities based on technological superiority, to ensure operational readiness and success in exploiting the competent human resources and equipment of the Sri Lanka Air Force The Vision of the Sri Lanka Air Force is To be a well accomplished, resolute, and ingenious airpower capable of fulfilling

6148-535: The Tamil language, Kannada still preserves a lot from its roots. As part of the southern family of Indian languages and situated relatively close to the northern parts of India, Kannada also shares some Sanskrit words, similar to Malayalam. Many of the formerly used words in Tamil have been preserved with little change in Kannada. This shows a relative parallel to Tamil, even as Tamil has undergone some changes in modern ways of speaking. According to Hindu legend, Tamil or in personification form Tamil Thāi (Mother Tamil)

6254-527: The Tamil separatists. Maintenance of electronic equipment was performed at the communications station at Ekala, in the north of Colombo District. After the Conflict started, the government worked rapidly to expand the SLAF inventory, relying largely on sources in Italy , Britain, and the United States. Because of tight budget constraints, the SLAF was compelled to refit a number of non-combat aircraft for military uses in counter-terrorism operations against Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) terrorists. From

6360-463: The Tamils who settled there 200 years ago. Tamil language is available as a course in some local school boards and major universities in Canada and the month of January has been declared "Tamil Heritage Month" by the Parliament of Canada . Tamil enjoys a special status of protection under Article 6(b), Chapter 1 of the Constitution of South Africa and is taught as a subject in schools in KwaZulu-Natal province. Recently, it has been rolled out as

6466-417: The United States respectively. In February 2022, the US Government agreed to provide two Beechcraft 360ER on a gratis basis under a foreign military sales contract to enhance the SLAF's maritime reconnaissance capability. In August 2022, the Government of India, delivered one Dornier Do228 as a grant with another on order, following crew training. The Australian Government has announced that it will gift

SECTION 60

#1732781005773

6572-447: The air force dependent on the army. This was seen specially during the 1971 JVP Insurrection . With the start of the Sri Lankan Civil War the SLAF Regiment underwent a large expansion due to the SLAF increasing the number of airfields and the threat to these from the LTTE . In 1971 SLAF Regiment was formed with 101 squadron, 102 squadron and the only one volunteers suqdron was formed as 106 squadron. In addition to that special squadron

6678-411: The air force from Air Force Headquarters , SLAF Colombo . The Board of Directors numbers 13; The air force has four commands known as Air commands, each under the control of an air officer for command and administrative control. The zonal commands control all flying squadrons, aircraft and air defences; zonal Commanders are responsible for air and ground operations that have been decided upon by

6784-442: The ancient language ( sankattamiḻ ), a modern literary and formal style ( centamiḻ ), and a modern colloquial form ( koṭuntamiḻ ). These styles shade into each other, forming a stylistic continuum. For example, it is possible to write centamiḻ with a vocabulary drawn from caṅkattamiḻ , or to use forms associated with one of the other variants while speaking koṭuntamiḻ . In modern times, centamiḻ

6890-451: The aspirations of the nation and preserving the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the island Although Ceylonese had served in the Royal Air Force (RAF) and the Government of Ceylon adopted the No. 102 Squadron RAF , no air units were formed as part of the Ceylon Defence Force . The newly established Dominion of Ceylon , under its first Prime Minister, D. S. Senanayake began establishing its armed forces. The need for an air force

6996-503: The civil war the SLAF support the Sri Lanka Army in all major operations undertaken, including: With the civil war ending in 2009, the SLAF reduced its number of sorties and began transitioning into a peace time role. This involved utilizing its fix wing and rotary wing transport aircraft for civilian transport by reforming the civilian domestic airline Helitours , as well as undertaking international flights and deployments as part of humanitarian and UN peacekeeping operations. In 2014,

7102-412: The closure of Air Ceylon in 1978, its Hawker Siddeley HS 748 transport aircraft was taken over by the SLAF. By the early 1980s the Provosts and all of the Soviet aircraft had been taken out of active service and placed in long-term storage, leaving the air force without any fighter/bomber capability. Rapid growth began in the mid-1980s, when the Sri Lankan Civil War against LTTE drew the service into

7208-399: The corps primary task, members of the SLAF Regiment guards both Civilian and military airports around the country. It also handles the Ground-Based Air Defence role of the Sri Lankan military, protecting both civilian and military installations. To achieve its objectives the regiment uses infantry , light armoured , parachute , mortar and anti-aircraft units. In addition to these roles,

7314-506: The culture associated with the Neolithic complexes of South India, but it has also been related to the Harappan civilization . Scholars categorise the attested history of the language into three periods: Old Tamil (300 BCE–700 CE), Middle Tamil (700–1600) and Modern Tamil (1600–present). About of the approximately 100,000 inscriptions found by the Archaeological Survey of India in India are in Tamil Nadu. Of them, most are in Tamil, with only about 5 percent in other languages. In 2004,

7420-780: The dialect of Madurai , and iṅkaṭe in some northern dialects. Even now, in the Coimbatore area, it is common to hear " akkaṭṭa " meaning "that place". Although Tamil dialects do not differ significantly in their vocabulary, there are a few exceptions. The dialects spoken in Sri Lanka retain many words and grammatical forms that are not in everyday use in India, and use many other words slightly differently. Tamil dialects include Central Tamil dialect , Kongu Tamil , Madras Bashai , Madurai Tamil , Nellai Tamil , Kumari Tamil in India ; Batticaloa Tamil dialect , Jaffna Tamil dialect , Negombo Tamil dialect in Sri Lanka; and Malaysian Tamil in Malaysia. Sankethi dialect in Karnataka has been heavily influenced by Kannada . The dialect of

7526-399: The differences between Tamil and Malayalam demonstrate a pre-historic divergence of the western dialect, the process of separation into a distinct language, Malayalam, was not completed until sometime in the 13th or 14th century. Additionally Kannada is also relatively close to the Tamil language and shares the format of the formal ancient Tamil language. While there are some variations from

7632-647: The district of Palakkad in Kerala has many Malayalam loanwords, has been influenced by Malayalam's syntax, and has a distinctive Malayalam accent. Similarly, Tamil spoken in Kanyakumari District has more unique words and phonetic style than Tamil spoken at other parts of Tamil Nadu. The words and phonetics are so different that a person from Kanyakumari district is easily identifiable by their spoken Tamil. Hebbar and Mandyam dialects, spoken by groups of Tamil Vaishnavites who migrated to Karnataka in

7738-616: The force. Initial objective was to train local pilots and ground crew with early administration and training carried out exclusively by RAF officers and other personnel on secondment. The first aircraft of the RCyAF were de Havilland Canada DHC-1 Chipmunks used as basic trainers to train the first batches of pilots locally while several cadets were sent to Royal Air Force College Cranwell . These were followed by Boulton Paul Balliol T.Mk.2s and Airspeed Oxford Mk.1s for advanced training of pilots and aircrew along with de Havilland Doves and de Havilland Herons for transport use, all provided by

7844-593: The government's security efforts were six SIAI Marchetti SF.260TP turboprops which were used for rocket attacks and strafing. Additionally, the air force, with the help of Heli Orient of Singapore , equipped twelve Bell 212 and Bell 412 helicopters to serve as gunships and as transport vehicles for highly successful commando assault operations. The air force had a fleet of approximately eighty aircraft, of which sixty-four were reported to be operational in early 1988. Government forces reportedly also used helicopters on bombing missions. A more effective bombing capability

7950-699: The hill country . Tamil or dialects of it were used widely in the state of Kerala as the major language of administration, literature and common usage until the 12th century CE. Tamil was also used widely in inscriptions found in southern Andhra Pradesh districts of Chittoor and Nellore until the 12th century CE. Tamil was used for inscriptions from the 10th through 14th centuries in southern Karnataka districts such as Kolar , Mysore , Mandya and Bengaluru . There are currently sizeable Tamil-speaking populations descended from colonial-era migrants in Malaysia , Singapore , Philippines , Mauritius , South Africa , Indonesia, Thailand, Burma , and Vietnam . Tamil

8056-432: The introduction of new aspectual auxiliaries and more complex sentence structures, and with the emergence of a more rigid word order that resembles the syntactic argument structure of English. In 1578, Portuguese Christian missionaries published a Tamil prayer book in old Tamil script named Thambiran Vanakkam , thus making Tamil the first Indian language to be printed and published. The Tamil Lexicon , published by

8162-475: The inventory by 2005. This included four C.2s and four C.7s in 2001. Currently the SLAF operates two C.7s, eight C.2s and two TC.2s. The SLAF used these Kfirs to launch attacks against Tamil separatist targets in rebel-controlled areas of the island. In 2000 new aircraft were acquired; apart from the addition of Kfir C.7s and Mi-35s, these included six Mikoyan MiG-27 dedicated ground attack aircraft (obtained due to lack of specialised ground attack aircraft since

8268-575: The island. During this insurgency the left-leaning Bandaranaike government turned to friendly nations for weapons and ammunitions. The RAF's heavy transports also flew in six Bell 47 G helicopters purchased from the United States, which were put into combat as soon as possible after only five days of pilot training. It received five Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-17 F fighter bombers and a MiG-15 UTI trainer, as well as two Kamov Ka-26 helicopters meant for search and rescue and casualty evacuation from

8374-461: The latter of which is restricted to a few lexical items. Tamil employs agglutinative grammar, where suffixes are used to mark noun class , number , and case , verb tense and other grammatical categories. Tamil's standard metalinguistic terminology and scholarly vocabulary is itself Tamil, as opposed to the Sanskrit that is standard for most Indo-Aryan languages . Much of Tamil grammar

8480-423: The name comes from tam-miḻ > tam-iḻ "self-speak", or "our own speech". Kamil Zvelebil suggests an etymology of tam-iḻ , with tam meaning "self" or "one's self", and " -iḻ " having the connotation of "unfolding sound". Alternatively, he suggests a derivation of tamiḻ < tam-iḻ < * tav-iḻ < * tak-iḻ , meaning in origin "the proper process (of speaking)". However, this

8586-613: The national defence requirements. The SLAF intends to have the first models entering service by the end of 2021 and implement lessons learnt in the design of the Lihiniya II UAV. The professional head of the air force is the Commander of the Air Force, as of 2023 Air Marshal Udeni Rajapaksa who reports directly to the Minister of Defence. The Commander of the Air Force exercises operational and administrative control of

8692-421: The number of people allowed into the terminal buildings. Huge walls were built around the terminals and the control towers to prevent impact from car bomb attacks, and many sentries were placed along the approach roads to the facility. All airports including the international airport are heavily guarded by members of the SLAF Regiment. In 2006 four MiG-27s were bought from Ukraine to replace two lost in crashes and

8798-537: The old aspect and time markers. The Nannūl remains the standard normative grammar for modern literary Tamil, which therefore continues to be based on Middle Tamil of the 13th century rather than on Modern Tamil. Colloquial spoken Tamil, in contrast, shows a number of changes. The negative conjugation of verbs, for example, has fallen out of use in Modern Tamil – instead, negation is expressed either morphologically or syntactically. Modern spoken Tamil also shows

8904-450: The one lost in the attack on the airport. Since the start of the civil war the SLAF used its combat aircraft in a ground-attack role to attack LTTE targets in the then LTTE-controlled areas in the northern and eastern parts of the island. Following confirmation that the LTTE was using several light weight aircraft in 2006, the SLAF expanded its air defence capabilities which had been neglected for years. Extensive air defence radar network

9010-482: The period 1983 to 1985, the Air Force acquired 11 Bell 212 helicopters, four Bell 412 helicopters, three SIAI Marchetti SF.260s , two Cessna 337s , one Hawker Siddeley HS 748 and two Beechcraft Super King Airs . By 1985, nine more Bell 212s were added to the fleet, along with four Bell 412s. The 412s along with the SIAI Marchetti SF.260 aircraft advanced the attack capabilities of the SLAF. Central in

9116-914: The purview of the Directorate of Ground Operations, the Director Ground Operations is the de facto commander of the SLAF Regiment. At first the primary role was airfield security and ceremonial duties. In recent years with expansion of the number of wings the SLAF Regiment has begun supporting the Sri Lanka Army in manning defence lines in the north central part of the country and taking part in offensive operations jointly or independently. SLAF Regiment detachments have been established in Morawawa, Pulukunawa-Mahaoya, Puliyankulam, Mankulam and Poovarasnkulam and has been deployed in Trincomalee and Peraru. But airfield security remains

9222-414: The recently opened SLAF overhaul facility. The aircraft overhaul wing was opened as part of a joint venture between the air force and CATIC with a plan to overhaul all F7 aircraft in service. In December 2017, Janes reported that the Sri Lankan government was in talks with IAI for the upgrade and return to service of five of its Kfirs which had been grounded since a mid air collision in 2011. Meanwhile,

9328-1090: The regiment carries out Airborne Rescue Operations and provide ground support such as Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) requirement of the Air Force, its personal serve as SLAF's firefighters and intelligence . The Regimental Training Centre is located at SLAF Ampara in Ampara . Regiment Special Force is an elite Special Forces unit of the Sri Lanka Air Force , part of the SLAF Regiment, formerly Air Base Defence Rescue Squadron, established on 7 July 2003. The task and role of RSF's Squadrons involves SPECIAL AIR BORNE FORCE (SABF) A highly trained troops primarily assigned for VIP Protection duties. Handguns Assault Rifles Sub-Machine guns Machine guns Sniper Rifles Grenade launchers Rocket launchers Royal Ceylon Air Force The Sri Lanka Air Force ( SLAF ; Sinhala : ශ්‍රි ලංකා ගුවන් හමුදාව , romanized:  Śrī Laṃkā guwan hamudāva ; Tamil : இலங்கை விமானப்படை , romanized:  Ilaṅkai vimāṉappaṭai )

9434-461: The retirement of the Pucarás), a Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-23 UB trainer and two Lockheed C-130 Hercules for heavy transport. Six K-8 Karakorum trainers were soon bought from China, creating No. 14 Squadron to train pilots for the newly expanded fleet of jets. On 24 July 2001, thirteen aircraft including two Kfir jet fighters, one Mi-24 helicopter gunship and one MiG-27 jet fighter, were destroyed in

9540-461: The risk of air intrusion low. However, approval had been granted to introduced fighter capability to the RCyAF. In 1959 de Havilland Vampire jet aircraft were acquired. However, the RCyAF did not put them into operational use and soon replaced them with five Hunting Jet Provosts obtained from the British, which were formed into a new Jet Squadron. Seven more Provosts followed. Defence expenditure

9646-504: The southern part of the island came under attack by militant elements associated with the JVP. With resumption of hostilities with the LTTE, to increase its attack capability, in 1991 the SLAF acquired four F-7 Skybolts , three FT-7s and two Shenyang J-5s from China . Later in 1993 the first of three Mil Mi-17 helicopter transports were acquired along with four FMA IA 58 Pucarás for ground attack. These proved to be effective, but three of

9752-470: The standard characters, six characters taken from the Grantha script , which was used in the Tamil region to write Sanskrit, are sometimes used to represent sounds not native to Tamil, that is, words adopted from Sanskrit, Prakrit , and other languages. The traditional system prescribed by classical grammars for writing loan-words, which involves respelling them in accordance with Tamil phonology, remains, but

9858-534: The use as training helicopters. The SLAF received the two new Y-12s in December 2023. In 2024, the SLAF has approached the United States Air Force to acquire two C-130 Hercules . With the end of the civil war, the SLAF changed its priorities and set a long-term goal of modernizing its aircraft and developing its air defence capability. By 2013, there were claims that SLAF was looking for

9964-526: The word for "here"— iṅku in Centamil (the classic variety)—has evolved into iṅkū in the Kongu dialect of Coimbatore , inga in the dialects of Thanjavur and Palakkad , and iṅkai in some dialects of Sri Lanka . Old Tamil's iṅkaṇ (where kaṇ means place) is the source of iṅkane in the dialect of Tirunelveli , Old Tamil iṅkiṭṭu is the source of iṅkuṭṭu in

10070-534: Was a Tamilian himself, in a joint sitting of both houses of the Indian Parliament on 6 June 2004. The socio-linguistic situation of Tamil is characterised by diglossia : there are two separate registers varying by socioeconomic status , a high register and a low one. Tamil dialects are primarily differentiated from each other by the fact that they have undergone different phonological changes and sound shifts in evolving from Old Tamil. For example,

10176-600: Was claimed to be dated to around 580 BCE. John Guy states that Tamil was the lingua franca for early maritime traders from India. Tamil language inscriptions written in Brahmi script have been discovered in Sri Lanka and on trade goods in Thailand and Egypt. In November 2007, an excavation at Quseir-al-Qadim revealed Egyptian pottery dating back to first century BCE with ancient Tamil Brahmi inscriptions. There are

10282-540: Was created by Lord Shiva . Murugan , revered as the Tamil God, along with sage Agastya , brought it to the people. Tamil, like other Dravidian languages, ultimately descends from the Proto-Dravidian language , which was most likely spoken around the third millennium BCE, possibly in the region around the lower Godavari river basin. The material evidence suggests that the speakers of Proto-Dravidian were of

10388-484: Was cut drastically in the early 1960s as a result of both foreign exchange crisis and an attempt military coup in 1962 . The RAF officer commanding the RCyAF was replaced by the first Ceylonese commander Air Commodore Rohan Amerasekera . The RCyAF did receive a few aircraft in the 1960s, most notably American Bell JetRanger helicopters and by Hindustan Aeronautics Limited HAL-26 Pushpak given by India . The force had grown gradually during its early years, reaching

10494-417: Was established and ground-based air defence strengthened. Aircraft interception radar of the LTTE light aircraft were developed using both fixed-wing and rotary wing aircraft until dedicated interceptors were acquired. During the 2007–2009 the LTTE launched several attacks using light aircraft on Colombo, SLAF Katunayake and several other locations with superficial damage. In the early hours of October 22, 2007

10600-513: Was followed by another humanitarian flight to Pakistan following earthquakes. In 2016, SLAF C-130 Hercules carried out resupply missions to its detachments based in Central African Republic and South Sudan. In 2017, the air force was deployed in force to assist civilian authorities during the 2017 Sri Lanka floods . To carryout search and rescue operations the air force deployed seven Mi-17 helicopters, three Bell-212 helicopters and one Bell-412 helicopters. On 13 July 2022, an Antonov An-32 aircraft of

10706-576: Was formed as SLAF Commando Unit with elite 52 commandos commanded by Flt. Lt. J.E.Peiris. Later, The Regiment formations increased to a total of 25 Field Wings by 2000 and later to 45 Field Wings. When the Sri Lanka Artillery disbanded its Anti-Aircraft Regiments in 1962, the air defence role of Sri Lanka has been taken up by the SLAF Regiment which it provides today, by the Land Based Air Defence Wing. Since 1956,

10812-634: Was formed in 1956. The RAF headquarters, Air HQ Ceylon, was disbanded on 1 November 1957. However RAF officers remained with the RCyAF until 1962. This led to increased responsibility for the fledgling RCyAF as the RAF withdrew its aircraft and personal, leaving air defence solely the responsibility of the Ceylon Artillery since the RCyAF did not have fighters to take over void left by the RAF withdrawal. The Government of Ceylon maintained friendly relations with neighbouring countries such as India, perceived

10918-476: Was identified in its defence policy and the Air Force Act was passed in parliament in 1951 in order to establish an air force for the new nation. As such the Royal Ceylon Air Force (RCyAF) was formed on 2 March 1951 with RAF officers and other personnel seconded to the RCyAF. Ceylonese were recruited to the new RCyAF and several Ceylonese who had served with the RAF during World War II were absorbed in

11024-463: Was provided by a small fleet of Chinese Harbin Y-12 turboprop transport aircraft . These were equipped with bomb racks that had been fitted to carry up to 1,000 kilograms of fragmentation and anti-personnel bombs. Transport, training, and surveying functions were carried out by a variety of Cessna and de Havilland aircraft. In 1987 the air force acquired Shaanxi Y-8s and would later use them for bombing, until 1992 when one Y-8 crashed during

11130-504: Was the lingua franca for early maritime traders, with inscriptions found in places like Sri Lanka , Thailand , and Egypt . The language has a well-documented history with literary works like Sangam literature , consisting of over 2,000 poems. Tamil script evolved from Tamil Brahmi, and later, the vatteluttu script was used until the current script was standardized. The language has a distinct grammatical structure, with agglutinative morphology that allows for complex word formations. Tamil

11236-451: Was the emergence of the present tense. The present tense evolved out of the verb kil ( கில் ), meaning "to be possible" or "to befall". In Old Tamil, this verb was used as an aspect marker to indicate that an action was micro-durative, non-sustained or non-lasting, usually in combination with a time marker such as ṉ ( ன் ). In Middle Tamil, this usage evolved into a present tense marker – kiṉṟa ( கின்ற ) – which combined

#772227