Vice Chief of the Air Staff (Pakistan)

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]

Vice Chief of the Air Staff
وائس چیف آف ایئر سٹاف
Incumbent Air Marshal
Pakistan Air Force
Type	Second-in-command of Pakistan Air Force
Abbreviation	VCAS
Reports to	Chief of the Air Staff
Seat	AHQ (PAF), Islamabad
Deputy	Deputy Chief of the Air Staff

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

• Vice Chief of the Army Staff (Pakistan)
• Vice Chief of the Naval Staff (Pakistan)