Air Chief Marshal BS Dhanoa and Wing Commander AbhinandanVarthaman – who was recently awarded the Vir Chakra for shooting down aPakistan Air Force fighter during a dog fight on 27 February 2019, today flew ajoint sortie in MiG-21 fighter from the Pathankot Airbase.

The Pathankot airbase is the front-line fighter base andhome to the 26 Squadron of the IAF. The Indian Air Force has about 5 squadronsof the Russian-made MiG-21 fighters. Of these, 4 squadrons comprise theupgraded MiG 21 Bison fighter jets. All five are likely to be decommissionedsoon. The 26 Squadron’s fighters have not been upgraded and will bedecommissioned end of this year.

Wing Commander Abhinandan - who taken captive by Pakistan onFebruary 27 after he was shot down over Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir- has beenrecently cleared to fly. Wing Commander Abhinandan was flying a MiG-21 when theincident happened.

Air Chief Marshal Dhanoa is also MiG-21 pilot and wasresponsible for destroying Pakistan supply dumps along the Line of Control (LoC)during the 1999 Kargil War which ultimately turned the tide in India’s favour.

The IAF needs at least 42 squadrons of fighters to maintaina credible deterrence along the western and northern borders but has only 30squadrons. To prevent the number of fighters from falling further, the IAF hadearlier upgraded the MiG-21s. Nonetheless, the MIG-21 will be coming up fromdecommissioning from the end of 2020.