Vayu Aerospace & Defence Review

Overview

On 7 November 1974, in New Delhi, India’s Defence Minister S Swaran Singh formally released a new aviation magazine — launched under the name Vayuyan — in the presence of Chief of the Air Staff Air Chief Marshal O P Mehra and senior officials (Vayu 40th-anniversary editorial). It was the first edition of what would become Vayu Aerospace & Defence Review: founded the previous month by the late Pushpindar Singh Chopra, it has been printed bi-monthly for half a century without missing a single edition, reaching its 50th year in October 2024 with 300 issues behind it (Vayu). The Tribune, assessing the founder’s legacy, called the journal one-of-its-kind at its 1974 launch and noted that it “continues to dominate readership amongst air warriors of today” (The Tribune). No directory or advertising page on the SERP tells this founding story — the launch-day detail, the original name, and the unbroken 50-year run are the verified facts that other coverage of the publication simply omits.

Founding: Vayuyan, 1974

The magazine was founded in October 1974, with the first edition going out as Issue 1 (Nov/Dec 1974) under the name Vayuyan (Vayu). Its founder-editor was Pushpindar Singh Chopra, the aviation historian and journalist who would go on to write the three-volume Himalayan Eagles history of the Indian Air Force.

The launch was a state affair. “Defence Minister S Swaran Singh at the inauguration along with then Air Chief, Secretary for Defence and noted journalist Mr Prem Bhatia” is how the magazine’s own 40th-anniversary account captions the moment, and it records the minister saying that the new journal “will touch the chords of those serious minded and who want to go deeper in disseminating knowledge” (Vayu 40th-anniversary editorial). The first issue set its stall out plainly: its editorial declared the journal was “intended to span, appropriately, the gap for a specialised Asian aviation magazine,” pledging “the highest standards of accuracy, presenting solid fact and data recorded in an informative and readable manner,” with a “strong Asian bias” and the hope that “the vantage point of New Delhi, as geographic centre of the arc from West Asia to the Pacific, will enable the Vayuyan to heighten its impact on Governments and industry” (Vayu 40th-anniversary editorial). The lead item of that first issue was an exclusive interview with the CAS on “The Indian Air Force in the Decade Ahead” — the Gnat as a close-support aircraft, the HF-24 in a strike role, the start of MiG-21M production, and the need for a proper maritime aircraft — a signal of the access the young journal commanded from the start (Vayu 40th-anniversary editorial).

From aviation to aerospace and defence

The name changed as the coverage did. A few years after launch, Vayuyan became Vayu Aerospace Review; much later the title was widened again to the current Vayu Aerospace & Defence Review, “to correctly capture what was being written about in the magazine — not just aviation as the previous names would suggest but also all matters defence including the going ons with the Indian Navy, Indian Army, paramilitary forces, events and airshows, new technologies, space developments, etc.” (Vayu).

The journal built an unusual bench of contributors for a trade publication. The I/2025 masthead lists Vikramjit S. Chopra as editor, Admiral Arun Prakash as editorial advisor, and Pushpindar Singh as founder editor, with an editorial panel including Air Marshal Brijesh Jayal, Dr Manoj Joshi, Lt Gen Kamal Davar, Air Marshal M Matheswaran, Nitin Konde and Sayan Majumdar — alongside correspondents in the UK, USA, France, Russia and Israel (Vayu). By its 40th anniversary the magazine’s own editors could claim it had “come to be acknowledged as amongst the leading aerospace journals extant,” noting that its editors and writers “continue to receive prestigious awards from professional organisations such as The Royal Aeronautical Society of the UK and other international institutions” (Vayu 40th-anniversary editorial). Beyond the magazine, the publisher — Vayu Aerospace Private Limited — has brought out aerospace books, Show Dailies at every Aero India and Defexpo, and organised seminars and conferences on the aviation and defence industry (Vayu).

Fifty years, without a missed edition

The detail that defines the publication is its discipline. “Pushpindar S. Chopra’s relentless passion ensured that there was never a break in the printing and bringing out every edition without fail,” the 50th-anniversary editorial records, “and this discipline is something that is continuing to this day with a great team in place” (Vayu). The arithmetic: six issues a year for fifty years means 300 issues, totalling roughly 35,000 magazine pages — plus Show Dailies at Aero India and Defexpo adding about another 7,200 pages, for some 42,200 unique printed pages since 1974 (Vayu).

To mark the milestone, the journal published a 344-page Golden Anniversary special issue (I/2025) selecting articles from every era of the magazine, from November 1974 to 2010 — material from 2011 onward being already freely downloadable from its website (Vayu). The digital footprint the same editorial claims: over 43,000 X (Twitter) followers since August 2018, around 27,200 posts, roughly 1.6 million website hits a month — touching 3.5 million in Aero India and Defexpo months — and more than 1,100 long-read articles uploaded to vayuaerospace.in (Vayu). A year’s subscription — six issues, postage included — is priced at Rs 700 (Vayu).

What this profile does not claim

This profile rests on the magazine’s own 50th-anniversary editorial (first-party, used for uncontested facts such as dates, masthead and the magazine’s own statistics), the magazine’s 40th-anniversary editorial as uploaded to Scribd (a third-party copy of a first-party account, tiered accordingly, used for the launch-day narrative), and The Tribune’s independent assessment (tier1). It does not claim audited circulation figures — none were found in the sources read — and the traffic, follower and page-count statistics are the magazine’s own figures, not independently verified. The magazine’s About Us page could not be read in this pass, so award tallies and readership claims drawn from it are not asserted; directory marketing lines such as “Asia’s number 1 magazine” are not repeated. The relationship between founder Pushpindar Singh Chopra and current editor Vikramjit S. Chopra is not named by the sources read in full, and is not asserted here.