Love is in the air: IAF veteran recalls romance with now-retiring MiG-21

Mumbai: It was love at first sight, the sun shining on her “majestic, dazzling beauty”, leaving him wondering – was he good enough for her. To hear Wing Commander Avinash Chikte (Retd) talk about the MiG-21 is to revisit an old sweetheart, full of grace, challenging and oh so unforgettable.

On Friday, the Indian Air Force will retire the legendary Soviet-origin plane that was the backbone of its combat fleet for six decades in an elaborate sendoff in Chandigarh. As the fighter jets streak through the skies for that one last time, Chikte is also getting ready to bid his adieu.

It has been 43 years since Chikte first set his eyes on what he describes as a “magnificent flying machine”.

He was just 21 at the time and remembers every detail.

“I first met my MiG-21 in 1982, gleaming in the sun.

Her features were so symmetrical, so conical and so beautiful, that it was love at first sight,” Chikte said.

“But I was scared too. I barely had 175 hours of flying experience, and wondered if I was good enough for such a majestic, dazzling beauty. She seemed so sleek and sharp that I named her ‘teekshna’, the pointy one,” he said.

The hours clocked in rapidly.

Chikte, 64, now a senior instructor with a commercial airline, has 2,255 flying hours in MiG-21.

The Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-21 supersonic jet fighter and interceptor aircraft was designed by the Mikoyan-Gurevich Design Bureau in the erstwhile Soviet Union.

The famed fighter jet was first inducted into the Indian Air Force in 1963. Over the years, the IAF procured over 870 MiG-21s to boost its combat prowess.

The workhorse in the air has also been in the news for its patchy safety record with some even labelling it a “flying coffin”.

The fighter jets were the dominant platforms during 1965 and 1971 wars with Pakistan. It also played a key role in the 1999 Kargil conflict as well as 2019 Balakot airstrikes.

For Chikte, that’s what endures.

“You didn’t just sit in the MiG-21 and fly it. After you strapped in, the aircraft became like an extension of your body, responding instantly to every touch of the joystick.”

And why does he personalise an inanimate aircraft as ‘she’?

Traditionally, for both sailors and pilots, the ship or the aircraft is feminine, he said. And added on a poetic note, “She is like a mother, a friend, a guide, the only one who is truly with you through storms and dangers, and the one who brings you home safe.”

Flying a single engine, single pilot fighter plane is never easy though. Unlike a passenger plane, a fighter jet is not designed for stability and safety, Chikte explained.