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Inducted in 1982, the Swing Wing MiG 23 BN aircraft was the backbone of the Indian Air Force’s strike force for 26 long years. It was indeed a very robust aircraft, both in looks and in performance. Its cockpit walls were protected by thick armored plating. It carried a vast amount of armament load on its under-wing and tandem under-fuselage hard points.
Though loading weapons on some of the under fuselage stations was rather cumbersome, the aircraft proved its worth and protected the Indian skies for a long time.
Ironically, like many warriors, it retired from service without seeing action in a war. It was, however, pressed into service during the 1999 Kargil war and carried out patrols during the 2001-02 stand-off with Pakistan as part of Operation Parakram.
Some of the salient aspects of this aircraft were: very intricate Undercarriage design; Swing Wing mechanism; foldable Ventral Fin; and Nav Attack & Auto-pilot systems. We were told that during the development stage, the undercarriage design task was given to some engineering college students-who I think did a very good job of supporting a very heavy aircraft.
The undercarriage went through a very intricate set of twists and turns before it neatly tucked into the limited space in the undercarriage bays. The task of sweeping the huge wings was performed quite smoothly by the massive jacks. The safety ensured that the wing did not sweep-back if the wing flaps were down. However, there were cases of this safety failing which resulted in chewing of the wing flaps.
A large Ventral Fin was necessary to provide the desired directional stability, however, to prevent it touching the ground, especially during landing, the fin folded-up partly to provide better ground clearance – though many still managed to scrape the fin on the ground during landing.
The Nav-Attack and the Auto-pilot systems combined to provide easy handling and care-free navigation, however, if the Nav system failed to align during start-up, the aircraft was rendered unfit for flying. Nav updates were obtained from tactically positioned ground beacons. Despite its vintage, the nav system provided good service. The auto-pilot, with the aid of ILS type ground elements, provided for hands free approach down to about 50 meters off the ground.
As per a tale, once a pilot lost consciousness in the air but before that he had engaged the auto-pilot-cum-nav system. The aircraft kept flying the selected nav route till the pilot re-gained consciousness and took control of the aircraft.
The engine did a commendable job of lifting this tank-cum-aircraft and taking it to supersonic speed, though its sloping down after-burner, coupled with its heavy weight, posed a tough challenge for the runway maintenance crews. The ruggedness of the throttle control could easily put to shame controls of some of the heavy tanks. One had to have strong fore-arms and tough fingers to master the various catches on the throttle lever system.
All in all, it was a ferocious weapon system. With its wings swept forward it looked like a huge bird swooping down on its prey and with the wings swept back to 72 degrees it looked like an Arrow.
The aircraft was not easy to fly. Not only were the controls hard, the on-board systems were quite complicated. Despite its huge size and heavy weight, the wing lifting surfaces provided enough lift for landing at comfortable speed.
As a matter of fact, feeling that the aircraft may fall out of the sky, most pilots came in for landing at higher than recommended threshold speeds. This caused the aircraft to stay afloat and not touch down till the speed washed off. Seeing useful runway being left behind, many would attempt to force the nose down with near disastrous consequences.
The aircraft had a very tough tail-chute. Though very few pilots were bold enough to deploy the tail chute in the air, but doing so after having made the mistake of rounded-off at higher speeds, easily brought the situation under control. However, if one came in at the right speed, getting a kisser-touchdown was not at all difficult.
MiG 23 is gone but long live the Indian Air Force. It is machines such as this one that have provided the Air Force the formidable capability to protect the Nation and always Touch the sky with glory.
Those who flew the aircraft would miss their tame giant.
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