Wednesday, May 26, 2021

Encyclopaedia of Indian aviation

Pushpindar ‘Pushy’ Singh Chopra. The name brings to mind a range of reference books scripting the aviation history of the subcontinent, capturing generations of aircraft flown, recording treasured history for posterity. It would not be an understatement to say that the work of Pushpindar Singh has been regularly used as official reference material by officers and airmen of all generations, looking to learn about the IAF’s past and its journey.

A renowned aviation historian, Pushpindar Singh’s association with the IAF dates back to the period soon after the Indo-Pak war of 1965, when he interviewed aviators and IAF personnel in an effort to record the air operations as they happened, and also to refute enemy propaganda. His write-ups and records of the air battles of 1965 are a valuable source of information for various authors who have written about the war. One recalls his article, ‘Laying the Sargodha ghost to rest’, in Vayu Aerospace Review in November 1985 as being a trailblazer amongst others, which led to debunking the myth of PAF’s claim of shooting down five IAF Hunters on September 7, 1965.

In the numerous books he wrote on the IAF, starting from Aircraft of the Indian Air Force: 1933-1973, and the coffee table books of squadrons, one finds diligent professional research on facts, anecdotes, pictures from archives, summing up history in a nutshell, which is something every official historian would aspire to deliver. To converse with him was akin to engaging with a human encyclopaedia of Indian aviation. It was perhaps for this reason that one mistook him for an Air Force veteran at many of the demi-official and social gatherings of the IAF that he was invited to.

26/05/21 Air Marshal Anil Chopra (Retd)/Tribune

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