'It was the beginning of a lifelong bond': 1960s Soviet winter that sparked India’s MiG affair

CHANDIGARH: It was one of Air Marshal (retd) Brijesh Dhar Jayal’s 90 winters. The best, he says, with a glint in his eyes.
It was 1963. Lugovaya Airbase in Kazakhstan (then USSR). Jayal remembers every step he took up the ladder that cold Jan morning to climb into the cockpit, heart thudding with excitement.

Everything was new. Even the heavy spacesuit-type Russian flight suits. He was one of eight fighter pilots picked to fly the war machine the West feared most. The MiG-21.


Thundering down the runway at 300kmph, the jets soared into the sky, the first-ever solo flight of the IAF pilots on the MiG-21. “It was the beginning of a lifelong bond,” he says.

Game changer
Now 90 and living a quieter life in Dehradun, Jayal is one of the last surviving members of the pioneering batch of IAF pilots sent to the erstwhile USSR to train on the supersonic fighter. It was a moment etched in history — India was on the cusp of inducting the MiG-21, the jet that would change the face of its air power.

Yet, today, the MiG-21 is often spoken of with a darker nickname — “flying coffin”. The veteran bristles at the term. “It is utter nonsense and completely unfair,” he says. “We had more MiG-21 squadrons than any other type, so naturally they featured more in accident statistics. But combat flying is not like driving a car — you cannot expect zero accidents. If you compare accident rates per 10,000 hours of flying, we were still better than many other air forces.”

In 1963, Chandigarh witnessed history as Jayal cofounded IAF’s first MiG-21 squadron, No. 28, and flew the first brand-new jet to land in Chandigarh from Mumbai, where these flying machines arrived on ship from Russia. They were assembled by Russian staff and test-flown by Russian pilots before being formally handed over to IAF in Mumbai. Finally, six IAF pilots flew these first supersonic aircraft to Chandigarh after making a touchdown in Agra.

Learning curve
Months before, in Oct 1962, Jayal had joined the group of specially selected pilots — Wing Commander Dilbagh Singh, Squadron Leaders MSD Wollen and S K Mehra, and Flight Lieutenants A K Mukherjee, H S Gill, A K Sen and D Keelor were the others — at air headquarters in Delhi for a final round of briefings before departing for the USSR.

His memories of training — it lasted four months — in the USSR are vivid. “For the first six weeks, we didn’t even see the aircraft. We were immersed in learning Russian and studying the MiG’s systems in detail (all the dials were in Russian),” Jayal recalls. All radio communication was to be in Russian, too. Conditions were harsh — temperatures regularly dipped below zero, sometimes plunging to minus 20 degrees Celsius.

The pilots were also completely cut off from the outside world. There were no English newspapers, or any literature to read. “We had no idea about the 1962 Chinese aggression until our liaison officer casually said he was sorry to hear that our country was at war,” Jayal recounts. “It came as a shock. Later, after negotiations, we got a radio. The only Indian station we could catch was AIR Jalandhar.”

The Soviets, he says, were almost possessive about their machines. “Any rough handling during training would earn you angry stares. Poor landings were met with scorn.”

It was in the second week of Dec 1962 that the Indian pilots finally caught a glimpse of the MiG-21. They initially trained on MiG-15 and MiG-17 before transitioning solo to MiG 21. Jayal says the Soviet system of training was thorough and worth emulating. “One must be grateful to the Soviet Union for having sustained a robust IAF by equipping it during a period of shortage of both resources and foreign exchange.”

How does he feel about the phasing out of MiG-21? “Like all good things, it must end. The design dates to the 1950s. We have overused it, and technology has moved on. But in its time, it was cutting edge,” he says. For Jayal, the MiG-21’s story is not one of tragedy, but triumph. “It flew more, fought more, and served India with distinction. It was never a coffin, but a warrior. It never let us down in any war, any combat.”

"Soon we are going to miss the MiG-21s that we have been so fond of. We loved and respected the MiG-21 irrespective of its version or the squadron where we flew. I was fortunate to have met and interacted with Rostoslav Belyakov, the director general of MiG Design Bureau. On the retirement of MiG-21, I have a personal appeal — we all must collectively and individually make an effort to erase the wrongful image that was created about the MiG-21 as ‘coffin’" — Air Chief Marshal S Krishnaswamy (Retd) FORMER IAF CHIEF

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