Air Chief Marshal AP Singh led the last flight of six MiG-21 at the air force station Chandigarh on September 26. The event, featuring water cannons and nostalgic reminisces from hundreds of pilot veterans on the ground, marked the end of an era for the IAF as it retired the last two squadrons of the iconic Soviet-designed interceptor.

The Soviet-designed aircraft made up 60 per cent of the IAF’s fighter fleet in the 1990s. The IAF has flown over 1,200 MiG-21s and locally built 800 of them, more than any other aircraft type in its history.

India bought the MiG-21 from Nikita Khrushchev’s Soviet Union in 1961 to address an airpower shift on the western border. Pro-western Pakistan had begun acquiring the US-built F-104 Starfighter, a supersonic aircraft armed with air-to-air missiles —

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