Rahul Bedi 
New Delhi: The Indian Air Force (IAF) has retired one of its three remaining Soviet-origin MiG-21 ‘Bison’ variant combat aircraft squadrons of around 20 platforms, and is committed to entirely phasing out this doughty fighter-type over the next two years.
The single-engine, single-seat MiG-21s that joined IAF service in 1963 will be replaced gradually by the indigenous Mk1A advanced Tejas Light Combat t (LCA) model, officials said.
IAF spokesperson Wing Commander Asish Moghe told The Wire that the retiring MiG-21 ‘Bis’ fighters, which were being operated by No 4 ‘Oorials’ Squadron at Uttarlai near the Pakistan border in Rajasthan, had been replaced by the more advanced Russian Sukhoi Su-30MKI (India) fighters. He said that the IAF aimed at retiring the remaining two MiG-21 ‘Bis’ squadrons – together comprising an estimated 40 fighters – based at nearby Bikaner and Suratgarh, by 2025.
Last year, the IAF had ‘number plated’ No 50 ‘Sword Arms” Squadron in Srinagar, which also operated MiG-21s, reducing the fighter unit to just a number on paper, posting out all its personnel and re-distributing its assets.
But the phasing out of the MiG-21s two years hence would bring down the curtain on possibly the most abiding fighter ever operated by the IAF, beginning with the MiG-211FL. A total of some 870-odd MiG-21 variants entered IAF service from 1963 onwards, with the majority of them being licence-built by the public sector Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) in Bangalore. These continued to be inducted into squadron service till the mid-1980s.
However, over decades, some 500 MiG-21s had crashed, killing around 170-200 pilots and many others on the ground, according to official statistics and led to the fighters being ignominiously dubbed by the media as ‘flying coffins’ and ‘widowmakers’.
But compulsion constrained the IAF to continue operating MiG-21s despite these mishaps.
One principal factor was the incessant delays in progressing the indigenous Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) programme, which began in 1983, primarily as a replacement option for the MiG-21. This compelled the IAF to keep the latter in service well beyond its use by date by resorting to jugaad, or creative innovation, for which the Indian military is deservedly lauded. And, in the late 1990s, the IAF opted to upgrade some 125 MiG-21 ‘Bis’ with Russian assistance to MiG-21 ‘Bison’ levels with locally developed, Russian, French and Israeli equipment.
And though the fighter’s R-25 engines were not replaced, they were ‘modified’ with ‘enhanced’ ancillary systems and accessory drives to power the heavier retrofitted fighters. The aircraft’s avionics were enhanced by fitting the platform with a lightweight Russian Super Kopyo multi-mode radar and a Totem 221 G ring-laser gyro inertial navigation system supplied by Sextant of France.
These, in turn, were merged with a locally developed navigation and attack computer, with the weapon solution displayed to the pilot in a heads-up display (HUD). The upgrade package also equipped the fighters with EWS-21 radar warning receivers from Thales of France, Israeli flare dispensing systems, video recording systems and locally developed electronic countermeasures (ECMs).
And though the fighter’s endurance and payload restrictions remained the same as earlier, it now deployed a wider and varied range of ordnance like the Russian R-73 and R-77 air-to-air missiles with ranges between 40-100 km and Kh-31 medium-range air-to-surface missiles.
The IAF scrambled four such MiG-21 ‘Bis’ in February 2019 over Kashmir in response to the Pakistan Air Force attack over the disputed region, a day after Indian combat aircraft had bombed an alleged terrorist training camp at Balakaot in Pakistani’s north-western Pakhtunkhwa province. In the dogfight that ensued between the two air forces, IAF Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman’s MiG-21 was shot down. But he bailed out safely, was taken captive by the Pakistanis and returned home soon after. He has now been promoted to a group captain rank.
Earlier in 2013, delays by the MoD in clinching the long-pending procurement of 126 Dassault Rafale fighters – later scrapped in 2015 – compelled the IAF to extend the operational life of several of its ageing platforms, including MiG-21 ‘Bis’, beyond their retirement date, to keep them operational till 2023-25.
This was well beyond the MiG-21s phasing out deadline of 2019, announced by then Air Chief Marshal N.A.K. Browne in April 2013, with a view to maintaining the force’s rapidly depleting force levels at 32-34 fighter squadrons. Veteran officers said that at the time the IAF was left with no choice but to extend the service life of its older fighters like MiG-21s (and MiG-27s), as there were no immediate alternatives available on the horizon. The IAF, said a former three-star fighter pilot, the force needed these MiG-21s to maintain ‘numerical’ platform parity with the Pakistan Air Force and also with China’s People’s Liberation Army Air Force.
Meanwhile, Wing Commander (Retired) Amit Ranjan Giri, a veteran MIG-21 pilot, is of the view that the fighter needed retiring as it was old, original equipment manufacturers’ support was ‘drying up’ and, above all, the technology it employed had been ‘superseded’. Writing in Financial Express in late 2021, he declared that though designed as a short-range interceptor, the IAF had “upped the game by using the MiG-21 in almost every role imaginable”.
This had included bombing, interception, reconnaissance, providing escort to bombers over enemy territory and training rookie pilots. The MiG-21 had even comprised part of large force engagements (LFEs), executed to deceive the enemy and conceal the real intent regarding intended targets, thereby forcing the opposing side to deploy a large defending package to its operational disadvantage. “Let alone Western air forces, even the Russians could never have imagined the role of a MiG-21 in LFE” Wing Commander Giri said in a silent tribute to the IAF’s jugaad in optimising its assets for its novel war-fighting manoeuvres.
The IAF’s decision to stick with the MiG-21s was more out of necessity than tactical, he conceded. With a humungous amount of sky to protect and few machines trickling in from overseas, coupled with India’s own delayed fighter development, the IAF, he said, had little choice but to build its strategy and tactics around what platforms like MiG-21s were available. “The IAF”, the fighter pilot argued “deserved credit for making use of what it had, albeit at a huge cost of constantly losing pilots”.