A month before the retirement of MiG-21s, which were the first supersonic fighters to be inducted by India from Russia in 1963 but plagued by an alarmingly high crash rate in later years, the IAF chief and other officers flew sorties in the single-engine jet as a final farewell to the old workhorse. “It’s an amazing aircraft to fly, very agile and manoeuvrable…It will be missed by all who flew it,” Air Chief Marshal A P Singh said after the MiG-21 sorties at Nal airbase. “But everything has a time and place. The technology is outdated and difficult to maintain now.”
“MiG-21 technology is outdated. It’s time to move on to newer platforms like Tejas, Rafales and Sukhoi-30s,” Air Chief Marshal A P Singh said. One of the MiG-21 sorties ACM Singh flew was in a formation led by Squadron Leader Priya Sharma, who is among the over 20 women fighter pilots in the IAF who are also flying Sukhoi-30MKIs and Rafales. tnn
Tejas delays made IAF continue to fly MiG-21s
The formal ceremonial farewell for the MiG-21s, after over six decades in service that saw the delta-wing fighters take part in all major conflicts but were highly unforgiving to pilot errors, will take place at Chandigarh on Sept 26.
The MiG-21s were among the most mass-produced supersonic fighter jets in history, with over 11,000 aircraft operated by more than 60 countries. IAF kept on flying the virtually obsolete jets, which have the highest landing and take-off speed in the world at 340 kmph, due to huge delays in the production of the indigenous Tejas light combat aircraft.
Of the 872 MiG-21s progressively inducted by IAF, many of them produced by Hindustan Aeronautics Limited, over 400 were lost in accidents since 1971-72. Crashes of different MiG variants, the bulk of them being MiG-21s, have killed over 200 pilots and 50 civilians on the ground over the decades. IAF is now left with only two MiG-21 ‘Bison’ squadrons with 36 fighters, which are largely bereft of modern systems with built-in safety mechanisms. With their phasing out, IAF will be left with just 29 fighter squadrons. This when IAF authorised 42.5 squadrons for the collusive challenge from China and Pakistan.
