Retirement at 62 for MiG-21

HOW many 60-year-old cars do you see on the roads? Hardly any, except an odd one, and that too mostly during a vintage car rally. But you do see an aircraft more than 60 years of age flying in the sky, routinely. That’s MiG-21, and there are 36 such aircraft (two squadrons) operating in India.

“Hats off to the engineers who keep these oldies fit enough to take to the skies,” said one of my son’s friends. I couldn’t agree more with the youngster. I worked on this aircraft as an engineer during the mid-1970s. Routine maintenance was simple and easy. Nine technicians checked various systems both before and after the flight of just about 35-40 minutes. The systems checked were airframe, engines, electrical, instruments, radio, radar, weapons, photo equipment and safety systems. However, the scheduled maintenance (after 25/50/100 hours of aircraft operations) and snag rectifications were not so easy.

Whenever the ejection seat was to be serviced, a crane was needed to take it out of the cockpit as it weighed more than 110 kg. This was different from my experience with the Hunter aircraft, where the ejection seat of about 50 kg could be removed just by two technicians by hand. Engine change in MiG-21 was a cumbersome job. The rear fuselage had to be removed, the engine pulled out and a new one put in. This was followed by reconnecting of the fuselage and subsequent checks on various systems as many fluid and other pipelines were disconnected. It was a two-day job. In MiG-29, it could be done in just three hours! Well, I can understand the difficulties faced with a much older aircraft, with much more snags and defects, akin to old-age problems of humans. Yet, the aircraft were maintained in a flightworthy condition all along.

MiG-21 has often been dubbed a ‘flying coffin’ in the media. Yes, there have been many accidents in the past two decades, killing many young pilots. However, an old car is likely to develop some problem and break down in the middle of the road. But the driver can get out and push it to the edge of the road. This luxury is not available to the pilot of the ill-fated aircraft. He has only one way to get down to Mother Earth. Take a decision to abandon his first love, the aircraft, pull the ejection-seat handle to get out, and then land safely, hopefully so only if he has enough time to do it.

Chandigarh was the base where MiG-21s were inducted in March 1963 into No. 28 Squadron, making it the first squadron to operate supersonic fighters. Since then many updated versions of the aircraft have been operated by the Indian Air Force, the latest being MiG-Bison. It is thus Chandigarh from where the aircraft are going to retire on September 21. I, an old hand at this ‘never too old an aircraft to get into the air’, would like to give three salutes.

First to the technicians and engineers. The second to the pilots who had enormous faith in their technical personnel and took to the skies despite all odds. The third is to the aircraft itself for holding on for so long. May you rest on your laurels through the ages!