IAF chief Birender Singh Dhanoa flies single-seater MiG-21

IAF chief Birender Singh Dhanoa flies single-seater MiG-21 NEW DELHI: It's not often an IAF chief tears into the skies on a fighter jet all alone. And that too on a single-seat ageing MiG-21. Air Chief Marshal Birender Singh Dhanoa did just that from the forward Uttarlai airbase in Rajasthan on Thursday. The last time an IAF chief flew a MiG-21 solo was way back in 2000-2001. Air Chief

Marshal A Y Tipnis (retd) had then undertaken sorties on MiG-21s at Bareilly and Chandigarh to send "a message to the boys" that the delta-winged fighters were still airworthy in the backdrop of them being dubbed "flying coffins" across the country.

Over 15 years later, which included the Aamir Khan-starrer "Rang De Basanti'' in 2006 that dwelt upon the high number of MiG crashes, Dhanoa flew his MiG-21 for a 30-minute sortie around noon on Thursday to ostensibly send a similar message and boost morale down the ranks.

In fact, the MiG-21 "Type-96" the almost 60-year-old "Tony" Dhanoa flew is the oldest version of the single-engine fighter still in service with the IAF. In all, the IAF still has nine MiG-21 squadrons (six of them are of the upgraded MiG-21 "Bisons") out of a total of 33 fighter squadrons due to the contnuing huge delays in induction of new fighters. The force, incidentally, needs 42-44 fighter squadrons to tackle the "collusive threat" from Pakistan and China.

Dhanoa has clocked well over 3,000 flying hours on a wide variety of fighters since he was commissioned as a fighter pilot in June 1978. "He flew the same type of aircraft, which is a ground-attack fighter, during the Kargil conflict in 1999. As the commanding officer of the 17 `Golden Arrows' squadron, he had then carried out many night strike missions on the icy mountainous heights to evict the well-entreched Pakistani intruders. He was awarded the Yudh Sewa Medal for it," said an officer.

The Soviet-origin MiG-21s were the first truly supersonic fighters to be inducted by the IAF in 1963. They were at the forefront of air operations during the 1965 and 1971 wars, outgunning Pakistani Sabres and Starfighters by a wide margin. It were also the MiG-21s that hit the Dhaka Government House with rockets on December 14 to force Pakistan's abject surrender in the 1971 war.

Of the design vintage of the 1960s, the MiG-21's stellar track-record was marred with a high crash rate in later years. Of the 872 MiG-21s progressively inducted by IAF, almost 400 have crashed since 1971-72, killing over 180 pilots and 40 civilians.

Without modern systems like FADEC (full authority digital electronic controls) and mission computers, the MiG-21s have the highest landing and take-off speed in the world at 340 kmph. "They are very demanding, and highly unforgiving to pilot errors. While combat flying is inherently dangerous, modern fighters have built-in safety mechanisms," said a fighter pilot.