The Archnazi
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The Indian Air Force (IAF) Gnats entered squadron service in March 1960. HAL soon obtained a license to locally produce Gnats and built a total of 193. The first wholly HAL-built Gnat flew on 21 May 1962 and production continued until the last one was delivered in January 1974. The Gnats served with the IAF until they began to be phased out of service in 1976. By 1978, all Gnats were replaced by the Mach 2 capable MiG-21Bis.
The Indians also considered a naval variant of the Gnat for their INS Vikrant aircraft carrier. But ironically the Gnat was too light for the ship - the aircraft launching catapult needed a minimum weight of 4 536 kg (10 000 lb)! To increase weight the Gnat could have been navalised with a radar, strengthened landing gear, arrester hook and other avionics, but with no support from Britain, the variant was dropped. In the end the Indian Navy ordered 24 Hawker Sea Hawks in 1959 and later bought a number of former German Sea Hawks which served with the Vikrant until being replaced by the Sea Harrier in 1983. As the advanced naval Gnat was dropped, possible sales to the Canadian and Australian navies vanished with it.
Gnats saw extensive service with the IAF in two wars against Pakistan, and in air-to-air combat against Pakistani Air Force (PAF) F-86 Sabres they gained the title of 'Sabre Slayers'. They also undertook ground attack and bombing missions, but their greatest achievement was in the air, where they achieved the kill to loss ratio of 3.5:1 in the 1965. Unfortunately the vastly superior Ajeet was too late to serve in these wars.
In 1965 Pakistan's president Mohammad Ayub Khan, who had led a military coup in 1958, felt he was ready to test India's frontier outposts, especially in the highly disputed region of Kashmir. The first skirmish war was fought in April 1965 and soon ended in a UN brokered ceasefire. Khan thought that he had 'won' an easy victory, as there was little opposition from India, and so in mid-August 1965 Pakistan launched Operation Grandslam, aimed at capturing the whole of Kashmir. The conflict lasted until 23 September 1965 when a UN ceasefire was agreed on. During the brief conflict, the PAF fought mainly with North American F-86F Sabres, and occasionally Lockheed F-104 Starfighters, while the IAF fought with Hawker Hunters, the Gnats and occasionally Dassault Mysteres.
The Gnat was so successful because of its agility and small size, which made it difficult to see against a background of haze at low level where most air combat took place. On 3 September 1965 the first IAF Gnat combat took place, when a 23 Squadron Gnat shot down an F-86F. It is also reported that on this same day a PAF F-104 forced down a Gnat from No 2 Squadron whose pilot, Brij Pal Singh Sikand, was taken prisoner. However, other sources suggest the Gnat was from No 23 Squadron and strayed into Pakistan and landed at Pasrur airbase. Whatever the case may be, the perfectly preserved Gnat was extensively tested by the PAF and now resides at the PAF Museum in Karachi.
The Gnat's second air-to-air victory took place on 4 September 1965 when a 23 Squadron Gnat flown by V S Pathania downed an 18 Squadron PAF F-86F, forcing the pilot (N M Butt) to eject. Ten days later Bharat Singh in a 2 Squadron Gnat was pursuing a Sabre at low level when the Sabre manoeuvred into the ground and was destroyed. Another victim was claimed just four days later on 18 September, when AS Sahdhu from 23 Squadron shot down a PAF Sabre.
Two victories were claimed by Gnats on 19 September 1965, both victims being F-86F Sabres. Vinay Kapila of No 9 Squadron shot down a Sabre over Sargodha in the middle of Pakistan. The Pakistani Air Force pilot, M Ahmed of No 17 Squadron, managed to eject from his stricken aircraft. Another Gnat, flown by Denzil Keelor from No 9 Squadron, also claimed a Sabre shot down. The IAF Gnat's last victory of the 1965 war was on 20 September when A K Mazumdar from No 2 Squadron shot down an F-86F Sabre. The pilot, L A H Malik from No 5 Squadron, managed to eject over Lahore, just over the Indian border into Pakistan.
In total, the cost of these seven victories was just two Gnats lost in aerial combat (excluding the one captured intact), the first of which was shot down on 13 September by a PAF Sabre over Sialkot, 10 km (6 miles) inside the north-eastern border of Pakistan (some sources suggest it was over Ferozepur, 120 km [75 miles] inside north-east Pakistan). The Gnat from No 2 Squadron piloted by A N Kale (who ejected after being hit) was downed by an AIM-9B from an 11 Squadron Sabre, piloted by Yusaf Ali Khan. On the 19th another Gnat was shot down by a Sabre from No 17 Squadron, piloted by Saif ul-Azam. The Gnat was downed over Chawinda, 30 km (19 miles) inside the north eastern border of Pakistan. The pilot, V M Mayadev from No 9 Squadron, was taken prisoner.
The Gnats performed well during the conflict, but they were not finished fighting - just six years later they were again battling it out with PAF Sabres, although they did less fighting than in 1965. The 1971 Indo-Pakistani war was sparked by a civil war in what was then the Pakistani province of East Pakistan (now Bangladesh). Pakistani elections were held in December 1970, and although the East Pakistan leader Sheikh Mujib won, West Pakistan's leader Agha Khan refused to honour the results. Negotiations to solve the impasse failed and after Mujib demanded independence, Khan ordered a crackdown in Dhaka in East Pakistan at the end of March 1971. In the ensuing civil war around 10 million refugees fled across the border into India.
India was worried about the influx of refugees and the political instability that resulted from the civil war, and so the Indian government decided that it would be more expedient to fight another war with Pakistan than absorb all the East Pakistan refugees. Initially India provided support to forces against East Pakistan, but when Pakistan declared war on India on 3 December, India invaded and captured East Pakistan, although with material and political support from the Soviet Union. On 17 December both countries declared ceasefires and soon after, the nation of Bangladesh was created, with many refugees subsequently returning home.
IAF Gnats fought in both East and West Pakistan, especially on the western border where the PAF had based many of its aircraft. IAF Gnats first entered combat on the afternoon of 22 November 1971 and scored their most highly publicised air combat victories. Four Gnats were scrambled to attack four Sabres strafing the Indian salient over East Pakistan. Three Sabres were downed in the fighting, with two crashing on Indian territory and their pilots (Khalil Ahmed and Pervez M Qureshi, both from 14 Squadron) being taken prisoner. The other Sabre crashed on the East Pakistan side of the border - it is not certain what happened to its pilot. The victorious pilots of the Gnats, Roy Andrew Massey, M A Ganapahthy and Donald Lazarus, all from 22 Squadron, were treated like heroes after the press publicised the event. A number of PAF aircraft were withdrawn from East Pakistan after the incident.
Also on 22 November, it was claimed that an F-86F flown by M A Chaudhry from 14 Squadron downed a Gnat over Chaugacha in East Pakistan, five kilometres (3 miles) from the Indian border. The Gnat was supposedly one of eight Gnats pitted against three PAF Sabres. It is not certain if the Gnat was actually shot down or not.
On 4 December 1971 it was reported that a Gnat engaged a PAF Sabre, but again it's not clear whether the aircraft was shot down - some sources suggest the Sabre was only damaged. On this same day it is also claimed that a PAF F-104 piloted by 9 Squadron leader Amanullah downed a Gnat over Indian territory - however, this claim is widely disputed and cannot be confirmed. Likewise, the claim that a 9 Squadron F-104 (piloted by A Bhatti) downed a Gnat with an AIM-9B on 4 December, cannot be confirmed either.
The only IAF Gnat confirmed to be lost was on 14 December 1971 when T Mirza piloting a Sabre F Mk 6 from No 26 Squadron shot down N S Sekhon's 18 Squadron Gnat. Sekhon had engaged six PAF Sabres over Srinagar in the middle of Kashmir and damaged two Sabres before being killed in action. Some sources suggest the two damaged Sabres crashed, but it is unlikely that this ever happened. Seven days before this the first Gnat was destroyed in combat, but it was wrecked on the ground.
As the world's smallest fighter the Gnat performed very well. Fortunately it was pitted against aircraft that had similar performance, and not more advanced aircraft like the Dassault Mirage IIIEP operated by Pakistan in 1971. It is ironic that more IAF gnats were lost to technical malfunctions than in actual combat. But in spite of its problems, the gnat performed well, as all the evidence shows.
Today many Gnats are in private hands or operated by commercial groups and can regularly be seen at air shows in the United Kingdom and elsewhere around the world. There are at least 38 airworthy Gnats still flying, and of these many are operated by a number of companies in the UK, including Delta Jets, Kennet Aviation and the Yellowjack Group. There are at least 16 Gnats in flying condition in the UK, 15 in the US, at least one in Finland, one in Australia and one in India. A number of Gnats are up for sale and change hands quickly. They owe their continuing popularity to their agility, speed, efficiency and relative affordability - around $300 000, or £170 000, per airframe.
