IAF bids farewell to Foxbats in grand ceremony

Bareilly, May 1: For 25 years it was India's elusive eye in the sky, maintaining a constant vigil over the enemy deep inside his territory and yet remaining beyond his reach -- the awesome MiG-25.

Capable of flying faster and higher than enemy radars, fighters and missiles, it undertook umpteen secret missions over Pakistan and China during its quarter century-long service with the Indian Air Force.

Today, the IAF bade the MiG-25 a fond farewell in a sentimental ceremony at the Bareilly Air Force Station where, besides the present MiG-25 squadron members, officers and personnel who had served in the squadron earlier, including those who have retired, were also present.

Present also was Chief of Air Staff Air Chief Marshal S P Tyagi who termed the occasion ''end of an era''.

The clean, well maintained environs of the Air Force Station at Bareilly, in northern India, successfully guarded for all of 25 years the 10 precious MiG-25s that no outsider was ever allowed to see.

Now, with these machines having served the force well and having served enough, the IAF today retired from service its only squadron of one of the world's best high altitude reconnaissance aircraft, the super secret MiG-25 -- it was the only High Altitude Strategic Reconnaissance aircraft in the world, other than the American SR-71, to fly routinely to the edge of space to take quality photographs over varied terrain.

Their task would now be taken over by satellites and unmanned aerial vehicles, supplemented with combat aircraft equipped with reconnaissance pods.

It was in 1981 that the Indian Air Force procured eight MiG-25R single seat reconnaissance aircrafts and two MiG-25U conversion trainers from the erstwhile Soviet Union. These were flown to India in a dismantled state and assembled and flight-tested by the Russians at Bareilly.

The induction of these aircraft led to the IAF raising the highly secretive No 102 Squadron, nicknamed Trisonics, with Wing Commander A Singh as its first Commanding Officer. The aircraft -- codenamed Foxbat by NATO -- was christened 'Garuda' by the IAF after the high flying celestial mount of Lord Vishnu in Indian mythology.

It is no secret that the MiG-25, equipped with powerful cameras and sensors, flew in hostile airspace as a matter of routine, though, of course, there are no public records to validate this.

One incident which lends credence to this is a ''sonic boom'' heard over Islamabad in May 1997, which is attributable to a MiG-25 deliberately going supersonic to pique the Pakistanis. The boom caused panic amongst the residents of Islamabad. According to reports, the Pakistani Air Force scrambled its F-16s, but the MiG-25 was too fast and too high for them.

Cruising in the outer fringes of the atmosphere, the 40-tonne MiG-25 had no parallel in the arena of gathering high value intelligence and strategic reconnaissance, and gave the IAF an immense advantage. Flying at nearly three times the speed of sound at altitudes above 90,000 feet, it was too high and too fast for any fighter to intercept or missile to lock on to.

The MiG-25s are also believed to have monitored Chinese troop movements in Arunachal Pradesh following reports of incursions in the 80s and early 90s, photographed militant training camps across the Line of Control, mapped enemy positions during 'Operation Vijay' in Kargil in 1999 and kept a close eye on Pakistani formations during 'Operation Parakram' in 2002. Given the capabilities of its high-powered cameras, it could have accomplished much of the work while flying well within Indian airspace.

The IAF closely guarded its precious assets, keeping the MiG-25 terminal off limits to even air force personnel. Even the authorities at the Bareilly airbase were not involved with the squadron's operations and flying activities. ''Given its strategic role, all tasking was directly from Air Headquarters,'' Air Marshal D S Basra (retd) who at one time commanded Air Force Station Bareilly said.

Over the years, due to attrition, the IAF's inventory has come down to four MiG-25s which include one trainer. In 2003, No 102 Squadron was ''number-plated'', that is disbanded, and the surviving MiG-25s were handed over to No 35 Squadron, the 'Rapiers'.

The MiG-25 initially had a service life of just 14 years, and were to be decommissioned in 1995. Life extension programmes gave them another 10 years and the final life extension for a year came in 2005.

The Russians no longer manufacture this aircraft and were reported to have even done away with technical literature and drawings. Nor were spares available. The IAF had developed indigenous methods for their upkeep, but these aircraft still had to go to Russia for major overhaul.

Of the four flyable MiG-25s with the IAF, two are earmarked for preservation -- one to the IAF Museum at Delhi and the other to the Air Force Academy at Hyderabad. The remaining two will finally rest at Air Force Stations in Bareilly and Jodhpur.

UNI