India bids farewell to iconic and controversial Soviet fighter jet Mig-21

At its peak, it flew with more than 50 Air Forces

- BY S VENKAT NARAYAN OUR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI, September 27: The first time he throttled the MiG-21 to full power in 1966, soaring 20km above the Earth at twice the speed of sound, the young fighter pilot felt utterly weightless, as if the sky itself had let him go.

“At Mach 2 you can feel the lightness in the stomach. The MiG-21’s turns at that speed are vast - banking sharply can carry you over many kilometres before completing a full arc,” recalls Air Marshal (retired) Prithvi Singh Brar. He joined the Air Force in 1960, switched to the Soviet jet in 1966, and flew it for the next 26 years.

“I loved flying the MiG-21 the way a bird loves the sky. In combat it protected me - when the hawk comes for the bird, the clever bird gets away. That’s what the MiG-21 was for me,” he told me.

After six decades of admiration - and later, infamy - India’s most iconic warplane The MiG-21 was the backbone of the Indian Air Force, once making up two-thirds of its fighter fleet. is finally taking its last flight on Friday. At its peak, the MiG-21 was the backbone of the Indian Air Force (IAF), making up two-thirds of its fighter fleet. It inspired fierce loyalty among its pilots, yet also acquired the grim nickname “flying coffin” after a series of deadly crashes in its twilight years.

According to official figures, between 1966 and 1980, India procured 872 MiG aircraft of various models.

Between 1971-72 and April 2012, 482 MiG crashes were recorded, claiming 171 pilots, 39 civilians, eight service personnel and one aircrew, “caused by both human error and technical defects”.

There is no official update of the data since.

"The MiG-21 has a chequered legacy.