Indo-Pak aerial battles

[solid snake]

Interesting page I found. It seems to be an Indian site, but has accurate, neutral info.

1. Who was the first Indian Pilot to Score a Kill?

The anwser depends on the conflict on which the question is based. Usually Sqn. Ldr. Trevor Keelor is said to be the first Indian Pilot to get a kill. He is the first if you consider combat after Independence. Indian pilots opened up their scores as far back as in the first world war when Flt Lt Inder Lal Roy shot down more than Nine German aircraft. In the Second World War, Fg Off J C Verma remains the only pilot to be granted an air combat kill - A Japanese Oscar fighter SD while he was flying a Hurricane fighter. Keelor is credited with the first kill by the Independent Indian Air Force. Recent research indicates that It may not be Keelor but Flt Lt V S Pathania who scored the first air combat kill after Independence.

2. Who is the top scoring Indian Pilot?

Officially, The top scoring pilot is Wg Cdr Vinod Kumar Neb, VrC and Bar, who is credited with two kills, One from 65 and one from 71. Two other pilots are also credited with twin kills in their citations, Wg Cdr F J Mehta VrC and Air Marshal P S Pingale VrC, but it is generally accepted that it was an inaccurate war time assessment. One pilot who may not have been offically credited but certainly is a contender is Air Cmde A T Cooke VrC.

3. Which airforce among India and Pakistan got its first kill first?

Its the Pakistani Air Force which got its aircombat kill first, and contrary to public opinion it is not in the 1965 conflict but in 1959 when an IAF Canberra that strayed into Pakistan was shot down by Flt Lt. Yunus in a Sabre. The PAF also drew first blood in the 65 War on the first day itself when Sqn Ldr S A Rafiqui shot down a Vampire fighter bomber.

4. How many aircraft did Param Vir Chakra awardee Fg Off N S Sekhon shoot down?

None, Sekhon damaged two of the Six attacking aircraft, one of them badly, but none of the attacking PAF Aircraft were downed.

5. Who is the top scoring PAF Pilot?

There are actually two of them. Sqn Ldr M M Alam with Four Hunters as kills from the 65 War, Flt Lt Saiful Azam with One Gnat from the 65 War and Three Israeli kills from the 67 Conflict is the other contender. Coming a close second is Sqn Ldr S A Rafique who has two Vampires and One Hunter as his kills from the 65 War.



6. Which are the best aircombat incidents that can be termed as classic fights?

In my view the following are the classic "dogfights" of the Indo-Pakistani Wars.

1965

a. Aircombat over Halwara on 6 September 1965 between Three Sabres and Two Hunters, which were reinforced by another two Hunters later on.
b. The Second PAF Raid on Kalaikunda of Four Sabres which was intercepted by Two Hunters of No.14 Sqn.
c. The First Mystere Raid on Sargodha which was intercepted by One Starfighter.
d. The Second Hunter Raid on Sargodha of Five Hunters in which Two Hunters were downed by Sqn Ldr Alam.
e. The Two Hunters Vs Two Sabres dogfight over Halwara on 15th September in which One Sabre and One Hunter were downed.

1971

a. The first aircombat over Dacca in which Three Hunters were intercepted by Four Sabres. (One Sabre was downed)
b. The interception of No.27 Hunter's raid on Murid by a F-6 on Dec 4th. (One Hunter was shot down)
c. Interception of the raid on Sakesar by Two F-6s. (Two Hunters were shot down)
d. Aircombat over Srinagar between Six Sabres and One Gnat.
e. Aircombat over Jamnagar between One F-104 Starfighter and One MiG-21
f. Aircombat over Jamnagar between Two Starfighters and Two MiG-21s.
g. Aircombat over Pasrur between One MiG-21 and One Sabre (MiG-21 was shot down)

Combat Pilots of the subcontinent.

Any knowledgeable members wish to elaborate on the above mentioned events and dogfights? It would be cool to discuss them, since the person who answered the above questions has mentioned several dogfights which I'm sure a lot of us aren't aware of.

 

[KENT]

Apart from very first section of this story which elobrate India's first Fighter Ace who gain his first kill, there is nothing seems new in it.

 

[solid snake]

Yes, but it would be good to discuss the air engagements listed in it. Such as how the starfighter fared in dogfights against Migs overall.

 

[su-47]

This thread is interesting, but the problem is that its prone to flame wars. since a lot of the air battles in Indo-pak wars are still foggy, with both sides making exaggerated claims, its impossible to determine the true figures. this can lead to flame wars between indian and pakistani members in the typical 'who's better?' arguments.

 

[Proud to be Pakistani]

This thread is interesting, but the problem is that its prone to flame wars. since a lot of the air battles in Indo-pak wars are still foggy, with both sides making exaggerated claims, its impossible to determine the true figures. this can lead to flame wars between indian and pakistani members in the typical 'who's better?' arguments.

Quite right!....

 

[Venkat]

Very old stuff. Nothing new there (though in all fairness when it was published - it was new!)

Plus quoting an Indian website is never going to win friends over here and is always flamebait.

Hence my personal preference to use the pafcombat.com website by Air Commodore Kaiser Tufail - which has downgraded many of the official claims of the PAF with excellent research that he had undertaken personally - even checking official PAF records. It corroborates 90% of what was written in the FAQ page.

unfortunately the site is now offline - but you can access some of the pages on the web.archive.org site.

 

[Venkat]

Very old stuff. Nothing new there (though in all fairness when it was published - it was new!)

Plus quoting an Indian website is never going to win friends over here and is always flamebait.

Hence my personal preference to use the pafcombat.com website by Air Commodore Kaiser Tufail - which has downgraded many of the official claims of the PAF with excellent research that he had undertaken personally - even checking official PAF records. It corroborates 90% of what was written in the FAQ page.

unfortunately the site is now offline - but you can access some of the pages on the web.archive.org site.

Oh, I should also add. P.V.S. Jagan Mohan who used to update the faq site now runs the bharat-rakshak site as well. There is plenty of stuff on the Starfighter vs MiG-21 over there - check one article in the 71 war section and the other about MiG-21s in combat. i have his book on the 65 war as well - and i can confirm that alfred cooke's story is the stuff top gun is made of.

 

[solid snake]

Very old stuff. Nothing new there (though in all fairness when it was published - it was new!)

Plus quoting an Indian website is never going to win friends over here and is always flamebait.

Hence my personal preference to use the pafcombat.com website by Air Commodore Kaiser Tufail - which has downgraded many of the official claims of the PAF with excellent research that he had undertaken personally - even checking official PAF records. It corroborates 90% of what was written in the FAQ page.

unfortunately the site is now offline - but you can access some of the pages on the web.archive.org site.

My own father who is in the PAF used to share a funny story with his coursemates about some senior retired officer who always used to backup the false claims of other pilots.

For example. Lets say this guy was pilot B.

After the war missions, during debriefing pilot A would claim "I shot down an Indian plane" The commanding officer would ask "can anyone verify that?" and pilot B would always say "yes sir, I saw the Indian plane go down" This made him quite popular amongst his peers

But this is not about the scoreboard. Both sides did indeed make exaggerated claims, so let us assume both of them exaggerated to an equal extent so that should cancel this problem out. We are all grown men here, no need to act immature and start claiming one air force is better than the other.

This is about individual air battles and air raids. Where things are verifiable, where we know the names of the pilots who took part and went down.

Has anyone here seen the History Channel show called Dogfights? It is really sad that this show has been able to accurately reconstruct Americas air battles which took place during WWII and Korea and Vietnam, well before or round about our wars of 65 and 71. They interviewed the pilots who are veterans of those wars, and have thus preserved even minute details for future generations. Check out 1 episode here on youtube:

Q8sU_kRDgfk[/media] - Dogfight history channel p.1

Unfortunately all we get for our wars is X number of Sabres fought X number of Hunters/Migs on this day over this location and this was the score. Shame.

 

[Venkat]

This is about individual air battles and air raids. Where things are verifiable, where we know the names of the pilots who took part and went down.

I agree completely. And again would recommend PAFCombat.com . kaiser tufail had done most of the above work for people like us! While the site was a copy of his book, there were many extra pages and some of them were tables that listed kills with complete details -names places etc.

 

[Shabaz Sharif]

Is there any information of how much each side have lost air fighters in wars?

 

[ejaz007]

These are the details of PAF air to air kills:
Pakistani Air-to-Air Victories
These are the details of IAF air to air kills:
Indian Air-to-Air Victories since 1948

Taken from a third party source to avoid blame of biased information.