Based at Gwalior. Probably the best known IAF MiG-21FL is this example, seen in service either during the Bangladesh War or at another time in the early 1970s, while being equipped with the GSh-9 gun pod. Usually described as wearing 'tiger stripes', the aircraft has actually got an improvised heavy camouflage in random pattern, which points at the likelihood of this being applied during the war in 1971, when a number of Indian MiG-21FLs and Su-7s have got a similar pattern. Note that the strips of dark brown (some sources say black) were in part applied also over the lower surfaces originally painted light blue. This a/c crashed at Ambala AB on 2nd September 1997.
Republic of India
|
Military
C992