[V.Narayan]

THE EAGLE SOARS

Birth of the Indian Air Force, World War II, Independent India, 1948 Kashmir War, the Jet Age & the indigenous Marut

This is a photo essay. May each photo speak a thousand words. It covers interesting milestones, events, people, anecdotes and images of the Indian Air Force over the first roughly 30 years of its existence from 1932 to 1961; from piston engine bi-planes to the transonic fighter jets. This article will be followed at intervals by several more covering the history and growth of the IAF including its immense contributions to wars that India has been compelled to fight. It is not meant to be a comprehensive history or narration nor does it cover every aircraft type to have served with the IAF.

My aim is to collect in one place a fair number of historical photos with captions for future generations to savour. I hope you enjoy going through them as much as I have in collating them. I have tried to make this easy reading and not a technical dump of aircraft data. But if any member wishes to know more about any type that served with the IAF please do put forth your questions as specifically as you can. I'll be pleased to answer to the best of my knowledge.

In this narration I have not touched upon the Naval Air Arm which has a dedicated thread to itself. It also does not cover the Indian Army's Air Corps which deserves a separate thread of its own :-)

While every effort has been made regarding accuracy if any error is found I request the experts to surface them or seek a clarification. All will benefit from it.


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The Birth: The Indian Air Force was born in October 1932 and went live in 1933. It was meant from the start to be an all Indian force and to act as an aid to the Royal Air force units based in India. Interestingly from day one it was named the 'Indian Air Force'. A senior British bureaucrat wrote that as we expect to be ruling India for the next 50 years or so we must 'Indianize' a part of the Armed Forces. Such was the thinking at that time.

In April 1933 Nos 1 Squadron went operational with its first flight of 5 Westland Wapitis (seen above). It was headed by a British RAF officer Flight Lieutenant Cecil Bouchier who to his full credit fought tooth and nail to nurture this fledgling team and protect them as best as he could from the depredations of the other British staff in the RAF.


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The First Five: With the Indian Army and Navy it is not possible to pinpoint a date and person with whom it started as they gradually morphed from more than one outfit over the years. In case of the IAF the first 5 pilots are photographed above. Only one of these would survive and continue in the IAF beyond World War II -Subroto Mukherjee - he rose to be the first Indian Chief of the IAF in 1954.


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Life in a Westland Wapiti - open cockpit, manually trained machine gun, the rear gunner was chained to the cockpit floor lest he fall out in an inverted loop, and the joys of an unsilenced engine deafening you with its roar. That's Subroto Mukherjee in 1934, with his gunner Hawai Sepoy Tonque, operating in the North West Frontier Province. Don't miss the canvas stitching and the tail control wires running through it!! To think that some of us grumble about air safety these days when we encounter a hard landing.

28 Westland Wapitis served with the IAF. One has been preserved at the IAF Museum at Delhi. It is the sole surviving aircraft of the type in the world. The Wapiti was a modest aircraft even for the 1930s. Powered by a 420 shp piston engine it was armed with two light machine a guns and 250 kgs of bombs aimed with Eyeball Mk 1 and goodluck. It flew at all of 200 kmph and took 15 minutes to climb to 10,000 feet. Such were the humble beginnings of the IAF.


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First Transport Aircraft: The very first transport aircraft of the IAF was the Armstrong Whitworth Atalanta. Most aviation enthusiasts have never heard of it and most IAF personnel might not know this either. The Atalanta was an inelegant 1930s vintage 4-engine machine that could haul 15 to 20 fully equipped troops at 180 kmph over a practical range of ~800 kms. Advisory: In case of strong headwinds land earlier! A very humble start. Between 4 and 5 served with the IAF in the 1940s in World War-II. The clumsy Atalanta was not one of those pedigree aircraft of the time like the German Junkers Ju52 or the American Douglas C-47 (Dakota) but nevertheless even though only eight were ever built it finds its place in the history annals of the World's 4th largest Air Force.


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The next major procurement for the IAF was the Westland Lysander a army co-operation, battlefield recce aircraft with outstanding Short Takeoff and Landing (STOL) capabilities. It could also be used for light attack, dropping supplies and infiltrating operatives behind enemy lines. With a stalling speed of ~105 kmph and a take-off run of less than 300 metres the Lysander was an asset. Sadly none survive today. Today these functions are performed by helicopters

Ground staff and maintenance technicians on a Lysander in World War II. Note the half pants and stockings which were common use uniforms of the time. Note the mud scrapper on the aircraft's wheels to help it operate from grass airfields. Note the mini- winglets fitted to the wheel guards with tiny pylons for bomblets!. Note that the place is a field and not a cemented tarmac.


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First Modern Fighter - Hawker Hurricane: Flight Lieutenant H. Moolgavkar getting started for a ground strafing sortie over Burma c.1944. His dog Husky used to see him off before each take-off. The aircraft is a Hawker Hurricane powered by a ~1100hp 27,000cc Rolls Royce Merlin V-12 engine - one of the four most famous engines to come out of WW-II. Note the four 20mm cannons that made up the business end of the Hawker - together firing 45 cannon shells per second; note the long range under wing fuel tanks - a sign that this will be a long sortie deep behind Japanese lines. See the rough and ready packed mud airstrip. Observe the simplicity of his flying gear - no helmet, everyday uniform with a oxygen-cum-radio mask. Moolgavkar later rose to be the Air Chief in the late 1970s. He passed away in 2015 aged 94.


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This was a popular wartime poster aimed at improving recruitment into the IAF as well as display bridges between the British rulers and the Indians. Both officers shown here were real people. Both started as airmen (like soldiers or sailors) and rose to be officers through merit. Harjinder Singh here was the first ever technical trainee of the IAF. He later became an officer in the Technical Branch and rose to become an Air Vice Marshal by sheer merit.


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Most highly decorated pilot of WW-II: KK 'Jumbo' Majumdar was the first and only Indian pilot to be awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross (DFC) twice - called DFC and Bar by the Air Force. He was without doubt the most competent Indian pilot to emerge from WWII. He was one of the twelve most outstanding airmen, of the Western Allies, as featured by LIFE magazine in its issue of 15th May 1944. He ran into trouble with his British seniors at Air Head Quarters for his outspoken style. And the IAF's top most flyer was relegated to flying shows around India to help attract recruits. In one such aerobatic show, while flying a faulty Hurricane, he crashed to his death. Had he lived KK Majumdar could well have been the first Indian chief of the IAF. He was 31.The following epitaph appears on the marble headstone of his grave at Lahore: "Go, passers-by And do if you can as he did, a man's part in defence of liberty."


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Young IAF pilots, of Number 1 Squadron in WW-II, posing with a Hawker Hurricane fighter. In the centre is Flight Lieutenant Arjan Singh, DFC who later was Air Chief in the 1965 war and the first and only Marshal of the Air Force (Like Field Marshal in the Army). He passed away in 2017 at the age of 98.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B__6xHwSJQ8

Video from Australian RAAF archives (silent video)
First Attack aircraft: The Vultee Vengeance, a American dive bomber, was the IAF's first offensive air machine. It served with us in WW-II on the Burma Front in 2 squadrons. In those days before precision weapons the only way to reasonably accurately place a bomb on target was to dive almost vertically over the target and drop it just in time to be able to pull out. A dangerous way to gain accuracy but the only way in 1942. Compared to today its armament was light - 2 x 500lbs bombs + 2 x 250lbs bombs and 6 light machine guns - but it was the humble forerunner for the offensive air power of today's Sukhois, Mirages and Rafales. As it often had to do long range missions up to 500 kms into enemy held territory the second crew member was a navigator who also doubled up as a gunner.


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The legendary Spitfire: Note the 'Chakra' style IAF emblem. This was adopted for a short while in the late 1940s immediately after independence and was then replaced with the more practical to paint in the field roundel we see today. This photo, of a late Mark XVIII, dates from c.1947. The long nose contains the Rolls Royce Griffon 37,000 cc V12 super charged engine belting out ~2000 SHP. About ~140 Spitfires served with us from 1943 to 1959. They were the last piston engine fighters of the IAF.

1948, Kashmir War

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Dakotas (Douglas C-47) carrying in troops and carrying out refugees in Poonch, Kashmir in 1948. Note the pilot has kept the engines on even while loading/unloading. This is because at this altitude, with lower oxygen, these old piston engines will not re-start once switched off.

In mid-1948 the Pakistani Army and irregulars & mercenaries from the North West Frontier Province pretending to be 'freedom fighters' attacked Kashmir and the Ladakh region near Kargil. The only road connection to J&K was via what had become Pakistan and there was no way to get Indian Army troops up to Srinagar, Leh and other locations. The Pakistanis had calculated that once they took over Srinagar airstrip, then the only paved airstrip in J&K, the could block any attempt by India to relieve Kashmir and then the entire State falling into Pakistan's hands would be only a matter of time. I will state here that Pakistan enjoyed tacit and complicit support of the exiting British rulers on their attempt to take over J&K.

The aircraft of the 1940s were not designed to fly over a 13,000 feet high mountain range that lay between Punjab and Srinagar. We only had 10 Dakota C-47 aircraft that could carry at most 21 equipped troops at a time and had a cruising altitude of 6000 to 7000 feet substantially below the Pir Panjal range they had to climb over!! The British staff with the Royal Indian Air Force ( as it was by then called) advised against an airlift.

But Air Commodore Mehar Singh, a legendary IAF officer and a maverick known for disobeying orders, worked out flying, navigation and payload weight management methods in days to have the Dakota carry troops into Srinagar and Leh. IAF Dakota's were landing on Srinagar airstrips and disgorging troops while under close fire from Pakistani's crouching in the grass surrounding the airfield. The first troops who had already landed held off the enemy for enough hours to allow an adequate number to be airlifted into Srinagar*. By the end of that day Srinagar had been saved and so had Kashmir. It was a touch and go like no other. The Indian Army and Mehar Baba's Dakotas saved Kashmir with barely an hour to spare. This flying was done over unchartered mountains that were too high for a Dakota's safe flying, without external navigation aids, in poor weather and at times at night to airstrips that had no lighting. Beat that. The IAF did it and did it well.

The Dakotas were also used as bombers (!!!) carrying 500 lbs bombs that were rolled out through the sideways facing cargo door. Not accurate at all but it frightened the enemy of what else might come. :-)

* Major Somnath Sharma, who staved off this attack long enough for reinforcements to arrive was awarded India's first Param Vir Chakra posthumously. This is now known as the Battle of Badgam where Major Somnath's ~100 troops held off approximately 700 Pakistani militiamen and finally repulsed them.


Air Commodore Mehar Singh MVC, DSO, far left with a C-47 in the back ground. Sadly Mehar Singh died early, in 1952, in an air crash.


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Hawker Tempest fighter-bombers over Kashmir, 1948. At the time of partition the IAF had only 8 squadrons and about 150 aircraft. From these modest beginings has risen today's 4th largest Air Force with over 1700 machines and about 200 drones.

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While the C-47 Dakota was the IAF hero of the 1948 Kashmir War the Hawker Tempest, the pen ultimate single piston engine fighter, was also extensively flown in ground support missions. The IAF having just suffered partition was ill-equipped with even basics such as warm flying suits required for the Himalayan winter weather. But they continued in support of the Army. The Hawker Tempest was powered by a~2000 hp air cooled radial engine, topped at 700 kmph (378 knots) and carried 4 x 20mm cannons and air-to-ground rockets as its main armament.

The actions of the Indian Army and the IAF saved Kashmir and Ladakh for us. Gilgit the North Eastern portion had been occupied and quietly appropriated by the British for Pakistan on 15-8-1947 itself without discussion with either the Maharaja of Kashmir or India. Eventually over 200 Tempests served with the IAF and some continued as frontline assets till 1955.


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First IAF Bomber: A story for the book of legends. Three bomber squadrons rose phoenix like from the smoldering remains of a junk yard. At the end of WW-II the Allies left several Liberator B-24 bombers behind at Kanpur. These belonged to the Americans under their lend-lease programme and by contract had to be destroyed and not allowed to fall into the hands of others. So with bull dozers the RAF half destroyed the dozens of machines and left them in situ. The IAF & HAL collaborated to assemble full bombers out of the junk remains and use them as bombers. By the standards of the 1940s the Liberator was a modern heavy bomber and the numerically the most built bomber of the war. Aircraft were assembled to bare flying standards at Kanpur and flown, on a wing and a prayer, to Bangalore by HAL's intrepid Chief Test Pilot Jamshed Munshi who had no training on the type! A total of 45 were rebuilt serving in 2 squadrons and 1 photo-recce unit till 1968. Five were donated to museums across the world.

The Liberator was powered by 4 x 1200 shp Pratt & Whitney 14-cylinder turbo charged radials that pushed it to 258 knots (478 kmph) carrying a bomb load of 3600 kgs over a radius of ~650 kms or 1200 kgs over a longer radius of 1900 kms.


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First Jet Fighter: With the debut of the de Havilland Vampire in 1948 the IAF became the first Air Force in Asia to field a jet fighter. It was a steady safe first generation jet built also as a two seat conversion trainer that made it possible for pilots to graduate from piston-props to jet flight. Note the twin boom supporting the tail and the centrally mounted engine. It was unnerving for pilots to be seated at the front with no whirring prop in front. The Vampire was assembled in India and served in the frontline till 1965 and with training units till 1970. The Vampire's top speed of 880 kmph (475 knots) is similar to the cruising speeds of most airliners today. This photo from 1958 is of a test flight flown by Group Captain Kapil Bhargava one of HAL/IAF's foremost test pilots.


First diversification of source: In the early 1950s the IAF decided to diversify its sources of supply away from only the UK. The Americans were already by then fully aligned with our western neighbor, the USSR was not yet our friend and the only other two nations developing their own fighter jets were France and Sweden. We went with the Dassault Ouragan the first ever French jet fighter. We bought 104 and it became a key part of our frontline for about 10 years. With the Ouragan, Marcel Dassault set the trend for all future Dassault fighters - focus on air combat, good power to weight ratio, big wing for low wing loading (which then offers higher maneuverability) and for secondary roles the ability to carry a good load of air to ground munitions. To us arm chair experts all this may seem obvious but stitching it all into one aircraft with the constraints of an available engine is always a design challenge and more so in 1950. The Ouragan also started our long relationship with Dassault.

Powered by the Rolls Royce Nene the Ouragan clocked 500 knots (~925 kmph) on the deck and could deliver 5000 lbs (2270 kgs) of air to ground ordinance when called upon. The Rolls Royce Nene has made history as being probably the most produced military jet engine ever. It was built by the British (of course), the Americans, the French, the Russians (unlicensed copy & paste) and the Chinese (copy of a copy).

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First Indian Air Chief: Subroto Mukherjee taking over office from Air Marshal Gerald Gibbs, 1954. Air Marshal Subroto Mukherjee became the first Indian Chief of the IAF at the age of 43. He had numerous firsts to his credit other than being one of the first five pilots of the IAF. He was the first Indian to command a squadron and the first to be promoted to flag rank in the IAF. He died prematurely in 1960. Other than being a competent pilot he was also an outstanding leader and diplomat who knew how to handle tricky situations.



First Indian designed aircraft: August 5th, 1951 the Hindustan Trainer HT-2 put sunlight beneath the wings for the first time. Its designer - Dr. VM Ghatge. The aircraft was used for 30 years as the primary lead-in trainer by the Indian Armed Forces and flying clubs around the country. The aircraft was powered by a 155 shp 4-cylinder Cirrus Major inverted in-line engine and flew with a top speed of 209 kmph. When empty it weighed in at 700 kilos. With 172 built the design was more than a moderate success for a pioneer attempt.


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First air lifter: The IAF started life after 15-8-1947 with only 8 squadrons of which only one was a transport squadron equipped with the ubiquitous and unbreakable Dakota (Douglas C-47). To support the Indian Army especially in J&K and the North-East we needed aircraft with significantly greater lift capacity and range. Enter the Fairchild C-119 Packet, from USA, in 1953. The Packet's twin tail boom design was an early solution to fitting a large cargo door in the rear while still maintaining aerodynamic stability and tolerable drag. You see this style in many cargo lifters of the 1950s. It was called the Flying Boxcar and its shape amply reveals why!

Initially they came with two Pratt & Whitney 28-cylinder pistons that churned out 3500 bhp turning 4-blade 15-foot diameter props. The piston engines, among the most powerful production piston engines ever made, were as interesting as the aircraft. These were 71,500 cc engines with a mechanically driven supercharger and a two stage turbocharger too. They were tiresome to maintain. Their complexity indicated the limits to which ICE engines could be developed leading the way to turbines in the future.

Later the Packets were fitted, indigenously, with an additional engine of the Gnat fighter on its roof to augment lift from hot and high airfields - it thus became a hybrid with two piston driven props turning at ~2000 rpm and one jet engine with its turbine spinning at several times greater rpm!! The C-119's could lift about 10 tonnes which was a respectable load for its time. They were the first and last American aircraft in our inventory till the Boeing C-17 heavy-lifter was inducted literally 60 years later. Note how the tall main landing gear folds backwards into the engine nacelle. Note the vast amount of glazed area around the cockpit allowing the pilot to look up, sideways and almost straight down too. This was a first which has since become standard in military lifters.

The Packets served the IAF very well for over three decades till the mid-1980s.


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Building a humble STOL* capability: DHC-3 Otter STOL aircraft in Arunachal c.1962/1961. While in the 1950s our immediate focus after independence was the Western border events through the '50s raised the need to be able to man and supply our Eastern and Northern frontiers too. In the '50s helicopters were small, with very limited payload and still evolving as a machine. The de Havilland Canada DHC-3 Otter, a STOL aircraft came very handy at this stage with its capability to operate into and out of mud air strips of 400 metres length. In 1962 against China these little tough unarmed machines proved invaluable in getting troops to the front in NEFA {now called Arunachal Pradesh}. Carrying about 10 troops they cruised along at ~200 kmph and could land on a postage stamp. Before the coming of competent choppers the only way to access our high mountains was either by the Otter or, in the main, by a mountain mule.
* STOL = Short Take Off & Landing


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Vertical Airlift: Vertical airlift provided almost exclusively by helicopters brought as much versatility to air operations as did the power of the jet engine. A helicopter might look ungainly and definitely unstreamlined but it outshines a fast jet in what it can do. Most of us know it can go up and down in the vertical axis but more than that it can fly forwards and backwards on the horizontal axis and sidewards too to a limited degree. It does not need a runway and an expertly flown chopper can make it very very difficult for a fast jet to shoot it down especially if the helicopter is flying close to the surface.

While the IAF did operate a handful of helicopters of American makes in the 1940s and 1950s our real coming out party came with the large force of Soviet Mil Mi-4 piston engine choppers that started in 1960. For the first 15 years thereafter 120+ of these rugged choppers formed the nucleus of our vertical lift capability. These were powered by a radial air-cooled 14-cylinder piston fitted in the nose and delivering 1680 shp. They carried 16 troops or 1600 kgs of cargo over a radius of ~200+ kms. The Soviets gave them a throwaway prices and rupee payments which enabled us to build a useful sized fleet in a modest budget. In 1971 Bangladesh operations the provided two invaluable heli-bridges to rapidly advance the Indian Army over that countries many large rivers. These were the largest helicopter airlift operations up to that point in time outside the Korean and Vietnam wars. More on this in the subsequent editions of this series.


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Building our military airlift capabilities: Antonov An-12, medium lift military transport flying across the Himalayas. The An-12, along with the Mil Mi-4 chopper, was our first major Russian acquisition and paved the way for a deep and long lasting relationship. The aircraft could take off from high altitude fields in Ladakh with a useful payload and served as an air bridge year round like none other in the world. The An-12 powered by four huge 4000 shp turboprops carried 20 tonnes of military cargo 3600 kms at a cruise speed of ~570 kmph. It served as the back bone of our airlift capability from the early 1960s to the late 1980s. The An-12 was quintessentially Russian, r-u-g-g-e-d. We even flew them as bombers in 1971.



The transonic age: 1957. In the late 1950s we wanted to acquire the British Hawker Hunter which was the definitive fighter world wide in the pre-supersonic era. The British said no. Dassault offered us the French Dassault Mystere IV which was the best transonic fighter they had - not quite in the league of the Hunter but still a lot better than anything we had. Top speed 1110 kmph; climb rate 8000 feet per minute; combat radius ~450 kms with drop tanks on a interception mission; weapon payload ~1000 kgs. As soon as we signed the deal with Dassault the British promptly agreed to sell us the Hunter.
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The Hawker Hunter was the best fighter of the pre-supersonic era. Period. Along with the Gnat, Mystere and Canberra it made our IAF a truly modern force by the early 1960s. These were the last purely mechanical aircraft before avionics became as important and later more important than the aircraft itself. Almost 300 of the superlative Hunters served in the IAF all the way to the late-1980s. Their apogee was the Battle of Longewala and the attack on the Attock refinery. Both of these will be covered in subsequent series.

This handsome machine carried a large 350 sq feet wing swept back 35 degrees with a lower wing loading than even the redoubtable Gnat. Its armament of 4 x 30mm cannons was devastating. Powered by a 4600 kgf Rolls Royce Avon it had a top speed of 620 knots (1150 kmph) or Mach 0.94 at sea level. In IAF service it was never mated to air-to-air missiles though it did carry French 68mm Matra rockets for air-to-ground missions.


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The Folland Gnat: IAF's pocket sized, fast climbing, super manoeuverable short range air defence fighter. Built under license. In the 1960s and 70s no school boy in India did not know of the Gnat. It was the first ever aircraft in aviation history to have a engine thrust that exceeded the empty weight of the aircraft. Today of course we have machines like the Rafale or Su-30MKI where the engine thrust exceeds the loaded clean weight even but this was back in 1956. This incredible power to weight ratio gave it a climb of 20,000 feet per minute and an acceleration to match. Compare this to the typical climb rates of 8000 to 13,000 feet per minute of almost all other pre-supersonic fighters of the age. All of this came to the nation's rescue in 1965.

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No story of the Gnat or its successor Ajeet or the Marut is complete with credits going to Group Captain Suranjan Das. He was one of two of India's first test pilots having graduated from the Empire Test Pilots School, UK in 1949.

In his career with the IAF he conducted the bulk of the testing on the HT-2 our very first indigenous design (a single engine trainer), was the chief test pilot for the HF-24 Marut and the first to fly it in 1961, later he was the first to fly and test the HJT-16 Kiran (jet trainer). With the Gnat he performed yeoman work testing the aircraft with the British (and later HAL) and provided a vast amount of inputs on corrections needed on the Gnat to make it a stable flying platform and cure it of its many, initial, problems with aerodynamic controls.

Once while test flying the Gnat he was doing an eight-point roll. He suddenly felt a restriction in the aileron control and the aircraft going out of his control. Instead of ejecting out and saving his life he very calmly started talking on the radio explaining what was happening and giving his suggestions on corrective measures he was trying to apply to retrieve the aircraft from spiraling into an unrecoverable tail spin. He asked the Air Traffic Control to ensure that his comments were recorded just in case he could not recover and was killed! He did recover and worked with the designers on rectifying the problem. This incident gives us a glimpse into the man and his character. Das was killed in 1970 while testing a Marut version with reheat engines (think of them as the aviation equivalent of turbo charged pistons). He was awarded the Padma Vibhushan posthumously for his services to the nation.


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First Jet Bomber: No Air Force is worth much with out an offensive punch that can hit deep inside enemy territory. Today we have the Rafale, the Sukhoi Su-30MKI, the Sepecat Jaguar, the Mirage 2000. But in the 1950s there were only three aircraft that we could afford and which could, geo-politically speaking, be made available to us - the Soviet Illushyn IL-28, the French Vatour and the British Canberra. We chose the Canberra. It was a wise selection. For its time it was so good that it became the first foreign aircraft ever to join the US Air Force and even got license built by the Americans. Powered by two Rolls Royce Avon turbojets it could deliver a warload of 3600 kgs to our adversaries 650 kms out and back. In 1965 and 1971 more crew won the Maha Vir Chakra (MVC) flying the Canberra than all other aircraft types together - a testimony to the crew, the kind of dangerous missions flown and the aircraft itself.

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First indigenous fighter: Marut HF-24 was India’s first indigenous jet fighter and the first supersonic aircraft designed and built outside of the five aircraft building nations of USA, USSR, UK, France and Sweden. The first flight took place on 17th June 1961. Whatever else one might say the gumption deserves admiration. The political, bureaucratic and I dare say military hierarchies did not have a proper appreciation of the supply chain infrastructure and quality control challenges that would need to be overcome.

Nehru tried to attract leading aeronautical designers from the west to work for India on this project. It was to his credit that, in 1956, he convinced Dr. Kurt Tank (of Focke Wulf fame) to take up this assignment along with his able deputy Engineer Mittelhuber.

Under the nose can be seen the port side 30mm cannon capable of firing 10 rounds per second. The two pylons on the left wing can be seen. Each of the 4 pylons was rated for 1000 lbs (~427 kgs) of ordnance. The Marut had a top speed at sea level of 1112 kmph. At full load she could still clip at 1000 kmph. So think of it as zipping along at 1000 kmph with 2 Maruti 800s strapped under its wings :-)

A thread on the HF-24 Marut on team BHP can be found here https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/comme...t-fighter.html (Indian Aviation: HAL HF-24 Marut, the first Indian Jet Fighter)


145 Marut were built. They served from the late 1960s to 1990. In 1971 they flew 200 ground attack combat sorties many of which were almost 400 kms deep inside enemy territory. None was lost in dog fights and on one occasion a Marut shot down a Sabre. Apathy from the IAF and our inability to find a suitable engine meant this aircraft never reached its full potential. :-( In the 1960s when I was a school boy we could design, test, develop and put into squadron service a Mach 1.0+ capable fighter and today after billions of rupees we struggle to get Tejas into full scale production. Alas. The Tejas deserves a thread of its own.

In these 29 years from 1932 to 1961 the IAF went from flying 100 knot (180 kmph) bi-planes to indigenously designed and built Mach 1.0 jet fighters and from a colonial policing force to a creditable large and combat experienced Air Force.

The next part of this series will cover the 1965 Indo-Pak war and the transition to supersonic Mach 2.0 aircraft.

Jai Hind.

Photo Credits:

%% History of Indian Aviation by Pushpinder Singh
## Wikipedia
&& IAF 50th Golden Jubilee publication
((( The Eagle Strikes
$$ Bharat Rakshak.com

[Aditya]

Thread moved out from the Assembly Line. Thanks for sharing!

[dragracer567]

As expected from Narayan sir, a delight to read and highly informative, especially for Millennials and Gen-Zs like me!

It should be noted how the leadership (both military and civilian) between the 50s and 70s managed to build a substantial fleet of modern aircraft while we are struggling to maintain squadron numbers in the 21st century with a much bigger and richer economy and a lot more allies and stature!

Eagerly look forward to the next part of the series!

[vamsi.kona]

Informative and succinct as always. Great read. It is indeed a great achievement that we had an indigenously developed fighter jet in the 1960s but didn't carry on with that work in a more effective way. Even though Tejas is delayed very much I believe it would provide us with great knowledge for future projects.

[Lalvaz]

Thank you Mr.Narayan for another lovely thread. You've painted a beautiful wide canvas of the Indian Air Force from inception till the 1960's. You've spoken at length about some of the fantastic achievements of the organization and some of its sterling people of yore. The pictures are a trip down memory lane indeed.

Now in order to ensure complete coverage, You need to continue this thread and also talk about some of the issues plaguing the IAF, such as:

1) Why the Indian Air Force didn't allow the indigenous aircraft program to progress beyond the Marut. Why was our indigenous aircraft program junked instead of being developed further like China?
2) Why did the IAF not participate in the China war?
3) Why did the Indian Air Force come to such a precarious situation of having only 32 squadrons instead of the sanctioned 42?
4) Why does the IAF have such a high crash rate?
5) Why did the IAF change the specifications of the LCA at the last minute necessitating a total redesign and subsequent reclassification to a Medium Combat Aircraft?

Thank you once again for a lovely thread and collating so many nostalgic gems from various sources.

[Abbas]

What a detailed account of IAF !

TIME, something we don`t realise and appriciate much these days. Just want to Thank You for taking out your valuable time in compiling so much information for us to read and enjoy.

[superbad]

Wonderful post V.Narayan sir, highly informative & very interesting.
I would just like to make a small point :-

Originally Posted by V.Narayan

[center][b]
The aircraft of the 1940s were not designed to fly over a 13,000 feet high mountain range that lay between Punjab and Srinagar. We only had 10 Dakota C-47 aircraft that could carry at most 21 equipped troops at a time and had a cruising altitude of 6000 to 7000 feet substantially below the Pir Panjal range they had to climb over!! The British staff with the Royal Indian Air Force ( as it was by then called) advised against an airlift.

But Air Commodore Mehar Singh, a legendary IAF officer and a maverick known for disobeying orders, worked out flying, navigation and payload weight management methods in days to have the Dakota carry troops into Srinagar and Leh. IAF Dakota's were landing on Srinagar airstrips and disgorging troops while under close fire from Pakistani's crouching in the grass surrounding the airfield. The first troops who had already landed held off the enemy for enough hours to allow an adequate number to be airlifted into Srinagar*. By the end of that day Srinagar had been saved and so had Kashmir. It was a touch and go like no other. The Indian Army and Mehar Baba's Dakotas saved Kashmir with barely an hour to spare. This flying was done over unchartered mountains that were too high for a Dakota's safe flying, without external navigation aids, in poor weather and at times at night to airstrips that had no lighting. Beat that. The IAF did it and did it well.

The Dakotas were also used as bombers (!!!) carrying 500 lbs bombs that were rolled out through the sideways facing cargo door. Not accurate at all but it frightened the enemy of what else might come. :-)

* Major Somnath Sharma, who staved off this attack long enough for reinforcements to arrive was awarded India's first Param Vir Chakra posthumously. This is now known as the Battle of Badgam where Major Somnath's ~100 troops held off approximately 700 Pakistani militiamen and finally repulsed them.

Contrary to popular opinion, the Pakistani backed invaders did not cross Baramulla (a strategic error on their part). Thus our troops landed safely in Srinagar airstrip. However due to non existence of intel & communication, they did not know that the Srinagar airstrip was safe, hence the first flight carrying troops of 1 SIKH under Lt Col DR Rai had to encircle the airfield twice to check for any intruders lurking in the periphery of the airfield. This was on 27 Oct 47, a day after Maharaja Hari Singh signed the Instrument of Accession with India.
Maj Somnath Sharma, PVC (P) & his 4 KUMAON company fought bravely almost till last man & last round & fought off the intruders in the battle of Budgam which took place on 3 Nov 47.

[ads11]

Always such a treat reading one of your threads! This is another excellent addition to the series.

Speaking of the Rolls Royce Merlin engine, I finally managed to make it to the Imperial War Museum North about a fortnight ago (I'll post the photos in a separate thread). There was a lot covering the involvement of Indian troops in both world wars, with some interesting memorabilia. For now though, a shot of the engine (excuse the grainy photo quality):

Interestingly I discovered recently that Rolls Royce originated out of Hulme in Manchester, I had no idea till stumbling across a nearby park on the grounds of what used to be the original factory


In the flesh, makes you realise why the piston engine fighters of WW2 all had those long snouts


Looking along the cylinder head, I wonder how futile having balancer shafts would be on something this big

[TJ02]

A very well written and informative thread. The thread just shows your passion for providing details to bhpians which many of us may not know.

I will look forward to your next threads on
1965 Indo-Pak war
Transition to supersonic Mach 2.0 aircraft
Battle of Longewala and the attack on the Attock refinery

[fulcrum29]

Your thread was a wonderful read sir. When you talked about the good thrust to weight ratio of the gnat and talked about modern aircraft like Rafale and SU-30 being much superior in this aspect, I took offense to you missing out on mentioning the mighty MiG-29 My username says it all.
Here is a good pic of the Baaz in its natural habitat that I found online. Also attached is a legendary photo of the entire Indian MiG mafia patrolling the skies over Bhakra Dam.






Note from Support: Please provide source for the pictures. Thank you.

[Rigid Rotor]

Crashing this therad and posting a couple of pics...albiet far ahead of the OP's timelines posted till date. Kindly do note - the pics have NOT been re-touched in any manner!


IAF Helicopter Display Team - 'Sarang' in a hard manoeuvre. sometime back in 2005 during the Aero-India at AF Yelahanka, (pic by Late Harish Balaji K).
Flying the Indian Advanced Light Helicopters made by HAL.

Note - The lead helicopter has already pulled up in a vertical through the visible two...

and - do bear in mind - each rotor turns at 353 RPM - a glancing touch is enough for gravity to take over...

The lower pic was during the IAF parade at Palam 06 Oct 2004 - again untouched - pic courtesy The Hindu

[skanchan95]

A fascinating read anda beautifully compiled post, as always sir.

Originally Posted by V.Narayan

First Indian Air Chief: Subroto Mukherjee taking over office from Air Marshal Gerald Gibbs, 1954. Air Marshal Subroto Mukherjee became the first Indian Chief of the IAF at the age of 43.

There was an interesting anecdote about Air Marshal Gibbs I read in ACM P C Lal's book about the acquisition of the Ouragan.

In the early 1950s, after having operated the Vampire variants for a few years, an improved version of the de Havilland Vampire (which I assume was the Venom) and Gloster Meteor became available for export to India. France had offered the Ouragan and its performance was comparable to the Meteor. Air Marshal Gibbs, being British himself, naturally favoured the Meteor. But Air HQ was for the Ouragan. Air Marshal Gibbs, however was professional enough to present a comprehensive and unbiased evaluation of the two fighters to the Indian Government and thus the Ouragan was selected.

[Ironhide]

What an Amazing thread Sir. Well researched and put across in lucid , easy to read language and peppered with the right pictures that has been your trademark. These threads by you, especially on defence related matters have become the go to research for the layperson who wants to explore about these subjects. In fact I often send links of your threads to similarly interested people I know.

Once again Sir, excellent job.

Kudos .

[akshaydandekar]

Originally Posted by V.Narayan

Birth of the Indian Air Force, World War II, Independent India, 1948 Kashmir War, the Jet Age & the indigenous Marut

What an inspiring and detailed slice of history Mr. Narayan. As a military aviation buff and an ardent follower of the Indian armed forces this has truly been a pleasure to read. Thank you so much .


Note from Support: Please quote only relevant sections of posts. Thanks!

[AZT]

What an article! Think I need to pick a scale model fighter jet for my work desk. Any one has resources for that.