New Delhi: It was a pleasantly warm morning in 1963, when India's first truly supersonic fighter soared into the sky with a sonic boom to shatter the calm. The MiG-21 is still flying high in the Indian skies, even though its stellar track-record got hugely marred in later years as "a flying coffin" or "a widow-maker".
Veteran fighter pilots, however, dismiss any criticism of the MiG-21 by dubbing it the "faithful, if highly-demanding, wife" that helped them be truthful to their credo, "Fight to fly, fly to fight, fight to win", over the years.
Even as IAF marks the 50th anniversary of MiG-21 operations this month, the single-engine fighter is not going to fade away anytime soon. Faced with a depleting number of fighter squadrons as well as an inordinate delay in the indigenous Tejas light combat aircraft project, coupled with the excruciating slow pace of new acquisitions, the IAF has plans to operate over 100 upgraded MiG-21 "Bisons" at least till 2017.
20/04/13 Economic Times
