Air Commodore Philip Rajkumar was commissioned in the Indian Air Force in November 1962. During his career, span of 26 years, he has held various appointments both in the field and at higher formations. These include command of a fighter squadron and fighter wing as also various tenures as a Test Pilot. During the Indo-Pak War inl965, he was awarded Mention­in­Despatches and later in 1976 he was awarded the Vayu Sena Medal for his contribution to Flight Testing.

Trained as Test Pilot in France, he was appointed as OC, Test Pilots' School and later as Chief Test Pilot at Aircraft and Systems Testing Establishment (ASTE). During his tenure as OC Test Pilots School, he was assigned the responsibility of running two ad hoc courses for training Flight Test Instrumentation Engineers and Flight Test Engineers at ASTE. On taking over as the Chief Test Pilot, he continued to steer the ad hoc courses to successful completion.

In his capacity as Chief Test Pilot at ASTE, he has effectively coordinated the activities AVSM 1989-90 of the Flight Test Squadron and the Maintenance Wing of ASTE to achieve an unprecedented increase in the trial work load, thus, providing a much needed boost to various indigenous development programmes. It was at his behest that Armament Research and Development Establishment developed 250 kg. counter weight bomb which will result in significant cost savings during annual squadron armament training. He also guided and successfully steered large number of weapons and systems integration programmes thereby enhancing the operational capability of front line aircraft of the IAF. He has also bee instrumental in a major avionics update programme of a front line fighter aircraft reaching its final operational standard.

Air Commodore Philip Rajkumar, VM has, thus, rendered distinguished service of an exceptional order.

Air Marshal Philip Rajkumar AVSM VM (6748) F (P) is one of the most exceptional test pilots in the IAF. In September 1994 when he was the Additional ACAS (Ops) at Air HQ, he was deputed to the Aeronautical Development Agency (ADA) to oversee the flight testing of the Light Combat Aircraft. This deputation was arranged at the request of Dr APJ Abdul Kalam, SA to RM and Director General, ADA. During the past five years the officer carried out seminal work in the areas of control law development for the fly by wire control system by extensive use of ground based and in flight simulators. The real time simulator was developed over a period of three years by continuous interaction between the control law engineers, simulation engineers and the flight test crew. The simulator is now as good as any simulation facility being used in any development program anywhere in the world. He has set up the National Flight Test Centre (NFTC) at the HAL Bangalore to conduct the flight testing of the LCA. The two technology demonstrator aircraft have been heavily instrumented with state of the art instrumentation. A real time telemetry monitoring station has been set up under his guidance. The use of telemetry for flight safety monitoring of flight tests is a concept, which is being tried out in India for the first time. After systems integration the first set of ground runs of the General Electric F-404 engine were carried out by test pilots of NFTC under his control. Thereafter a set of low speed taxi trials were carried out to test the software of the brake management and nose wheel steering systems at the managerial level. Air Marshal Rajkumar has participated in several hundred-review meetings held to monitor progress of systems development. He has continued to maintain his flying proficiency by flying at ASTE when required. He has flown 5200 hrs on 55 types of aircraft.

Air Marshal P Rajkumar AVSM VM has thus rendered distinguished service of the most exceptional order.