[1] Born with the name Elang Soerjadi Soerjadarma, he was the son of Raden Suryaka Suryadarma who worked as a bank employee in Banyuwangi.

[3] In September 1934, Soerjadi Soerjadarma graduated from the Breda Military Academy, with the rank of Second Lieutenant, he was assigned to the Dutch Army unit in Nijmegen.

Only on the third occasion, he passed the medical test and began pilot education at the Kalijati Aviation School, in December 1937.

Suryadarma was appointed as instructor at Pilot and Observer School (Vlieg en Waarnemerschool), Kalijati in January 1941.

[6] During the Japanese invasion of the Dutch East Indies that begun in December 1941, he served as Deputy Commander of the 7e Afdeling with the rank of Luitenant-Waarnemer.

On 13 January 1942, Suryadarma led an unescorted bombing mission of three[2] (other source mentions nine[7]) Glenn Martin to attack Tarakan from their base at Samarinda II Airfield.

[2][7] Unlike many of his counterpart in the colonial air force who fled to Australia during the Japanese occupation, Suryadarma chose to stayed in the East Indies.

Suryadarma realized the importance of paratroopers, given the geographical condition of Indonesia, consisting of thousands of islands, which became the forerunner of the first paratrooper unit in Indonesia, establishing the Pasukan Gerak Tjepat (PGT) which became the Indonesian Air Force's Kopasgat, the oldest special forces unit in Southeast Asia.

Suryadarma strongly supported the ideas of Wiweko Supeno and Nurtanio in various experiments on airplanes and helicopter production in Maospati.

He along with Halim Perdanakusuma and Wiweko invited foreign transport planes to break through the Dutch air blockade against Indonesia.

[3] From 1950 to 1954, then Air Marshal Suryadarma prioritized the establishment of flight training and education schools with military and civil aviation technical vocational training, by utilizing Dutch experts (former East Indies Air force and Naval aviation) as instructors, lecturers and education quality supervisors, while the Airborne Officers' School employed instructors from the United States Army and Air Force.

His policies were allowing civilians interested in flying with the Piper Cub L4-J training aircraft, as long as they met the requirements.

The instructors were Air Force pilots and this course was limited to Cililitan (Halim), Andir (Sulaiman, Bandung) and Maguwo (Adisucipto).

In the first years, these schools used Air Force instructors, but later replaced by foreign workers on the recommendation of the ICAO and added civilian personnel who met ICAO qualifications[8] He played a role in the negotiations for the takeover of KNILM/KLM to become Garuda Indonesia Airways (GIA) in the 1950s and the pilots came from the first batch of graduates of the Air Force Aviation Officers School.

In addition, Suryadarma also initiated a program for pilots and civil aviation crews becoming officers and non-commissioned officers of the Air Force reserve - a practice adopted from Aeroflot, whose staff formed part of the reserve of the Soviet Air Forces.

[10] Regardless of the outcome, he laid the groundwork for the transformation of the Air Force into a powerful service - by the time he retired the TNI-AU - then AURI - had become one of the strongest in the Asia-Pacific and the world at large, with its fleets of MiG fighters, Soviet built transports and bombers, and a first surface to air missile system for the country - the Soviet produced S-75 Dvina - serving alongside Western systems acquired during his long tenure.

His body was then buried at the funeral home and at the Indonesian Air Force Headquarters, Jalan Gatot Subroto.