After 50 eventful years of service during which they saw action in campaigns as diverse as peacekeeping operations in Congo and the 1965 and 1971 wars with Pakistan, the Indian Air Force on Friday bid adieu to its old war horses, the Canberra jets.
Amidst fanfare and nostalgia, the British-made Canberra jets of 106 Squadron made their last flight from the airbase here, where they were located for a major part of their five decades in service.
Fighting Lynx, as the last Canberra squadron is known, was overtaken by the speed and stealth of their supersonic cousins like the MiGs, Sukhois and Mirages but it blazed a trail of glory that will be hard to equal.
Honours galore
The squadron has the honour of being among IAF units that have won the highest number of war-time decorations like the Maha Vir Chakra, Vir Chakra and Shaurya Chakra.
The Indian Air Force planned on several occasions to phase out the sub-sonic aircraft acquired in 1957 to serve as bombers but each time a new danger to the country’s security brought the versatile jets back into the reckoning in different avatars.
The Canberras saw action just four years after their induction while supporting Indian forces in the peacekeeping mission in Congo, where they braved enemy fire and bad weather to destroy a key rebel airbase.
When the IAF ventured into unchartered territory in Sri Lanka during Operation Pawan, the Canberras were there to provide vital surveillance. In the 1999 Kargil conflict, a Canberra made it back from a reconnaissance mission with images of the Pakistani intrusion despite being hit by a missile.
Group Captain A Perumal, the pilot who received a Shaurya Chakra for landing the missile-hit jet in Srinagar in 1999, told PTI: “Only the sturdy Canberra could have survived the enemy’s Stinger missile and landed safely with its vital information.”
Maha Vir Chakra awardee Wing Commander M V Nath, among the first Indian Air Force pilots to fly the Canberra, said, “It is difficult for me to express my emotions. The aircraft with which one has been associated since 1957 is now no more.”
In the years before its phasing out, the Canberra was relegated to providing target practice by towing banners for anti-aircraft guns on the ground though it continued to be used for reconnaissance missions even in an era of satellites and hi-tech radars.
The Indian Air Force chief, Air Chief Marshal Fali H Major, explaining why the jets were being phased out, said, “Whatever tasks were being performed by the Canberra can be done by other planes.”