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HomeOpinionWas it US’ F-16 or China’s JF-17 that ‘downed’ MiG 21 Bison...

Was it US’ F-16 or China’s JF-17 that ‘downed’ MiG 21 Bison piloted by Abhinandan?

Both F-16 and JF-17 were equally capable, as was France’s Mirage-V, of which Pakistan has plenty. These days, air platform matters relatively little.

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To this touchy question — touchy for political and legal reasons — the answer is that it scarcely matters. Either aircraft, the US supplied F-16 or the Chinese origin JF-17, was equally capable of downing the Soviet era Mig-21 Bison piloted by Wing Commander Abhinandan Varathaman. The French supplied Mirage-V, of which Pakistan has plenty, could have done this too. These days the air platform matters relatively little; in the Bison case one set of avionics and air-to-air missiles had clearly worked as intended. Hence Pakistan ended with a 1-0 kill in its favour, albeit one that India denies.

Was pilot skill important? In this electronic age this is secondary but might still have mattered. Having flown more sorties than Indians, Pakistani pilots are better trained. Indeed, there was massive use of fighter aircraft for ground support during the Zarb-i-Azb operation, and earlier against Baloch separatists. These were ideal for pilot training since there was little danger of being shot down.

Yet it is easily possible to make too much of the Bison’s downing. Knowing some key facts about modern air combat can help one arrive at a more balanced view. This makes possible a more clinical management of Indian and Pakistani testosterone levels which, after India’s botched Balakot attack, had shot sky high on both sides. Even reasonable Pakistani columnists — who generally tend to keep an even keel — had briefly tipped over. One likened the post-Balakot aerial skirmish to the Battle of Britain.


Also read: In PAF lies & subterfuge, an F-16 tail number & a PAF pilot  —  both hidden to serve a myth


Reflecting upon modern air combat here has a second purpose: to raise a warning flag. People everywhere tend to live in the past and most appear unaware that modern weaponry has changed the nature of war itself. They still search for heroes when, in fact, the role of valour is well on its way out. Wars of the future, particularly aerial wars, will be entirely hero-less and fundamentally technology driven. 

Nobody could have anticipated this at the beginning of aerial warfare in around 1914. During the early months of the First World War, German and British pilots would simply wave to each other while carrying out reconnaissance missions across enemy lines. Then some started carrying bricks to throw at the plane flying just below. Grenades followed, graduating to pistols and revolvers. By the war’s end fighter planes like the Sopwith Camel and Fokker D-VII were equipped with machine guns and could zip along at nearly 180 kilometres per hour — then a huge speed! 

Over the following decades — and particularly during the Second World War — aircraft manoeuvred to shoot each other out of the sky. Their dogfights created grand spectacles for those on the ground. Fighter aces, defined as those with 5+ kills, became known for their derring-do and were worshipped by publics everywhere. 

As an exuberant 14-year old, I too had plastered my room with pictures of the Red Baron (Manfred von Richtofen), Douglas Bader (of Battle of Britain fame) and, of course, my ace hero M.M. Alam who brought down five Indian Hawker Hunters in just one sortie during the 1965 war. Almost as awesome was ‘8-Pass Charlie’, a Pakistani B-58 pilot so nicknamed by an Indian fighter pilot who described him as “a cool dude and a professional of the highest order”. 8-Pass Charlie routinely made eight passes over Adampur air base in Indian Punjab, each time dropping his bombs after carefully choosing his target. 


Also read: Haven’t counted Pakistan’s F-16s, says Pentagon after US magazine claimed it did


That age of grudging admiration for the enemy’s valour ultimately closed as warfare became increasingly depersonalised. Eye-to-eye air combat is unimaginable today! In today’s jargon, fighter aircraft are designed to primarily engage in BVR (Beyond Visual Range) mode. In fact, all reasonably advanced fighters — US, Russian, Chinese, or French — can detect an enemy using BVR Doppler radar and then deploy air-to-air missiles from as far as 50-100 km. This means having the supporting infrastructure of radars, data-links, self-defence jammers, and helmet-mounted sights.

Once a missile’s radar locks onto its target, the options for that unfortunate pilot are only a few. He could try a fast climb and hope to exhaust the missile’s kinetic energy, or turn tightly and risk high G’s with subsequent blackout. But the more capable a missile, the smaller his chances of survival. 

Fifth generation aircraft — such as the F-35 stealth fighter — have tilted an already tilted playing field much further. In Atlantic war exercises these fighters have been repeatedly tested against the kind of third- and fourth-generation fighters like those currently in the Pakistani and Indian air fleets. While kill ratios are secret, they are sometimes leaked. Assuming the leaks are correct, in some hypothetical war just two squadrons of American F-35s could knock down the combined might of the PAF and IAF fleets fighting together for the loss of just one F-35 — or perhaps none.

That’s here and now, not some hypothetical future! But what lies in decades hence? Most probably things will be unrecognisably different from the present. One can guess that lasers or heavy ion beams will become powerful enough to instantly zap planes out of the sky. Fighter aircraft — if they then still exist — will be flown by robots situationally informed by deep neural nets. The human pilot, who can sustain only so many G’s and whose responses are slow and bumbling, will become redundant.


Also read: This is the MiG-21 Bison, the fighter jet Wg Cdr Abhinandan flew to take on Pakistan’s F-16s


Back in the days of face-to-face fighting, it made sense to talk of courage and gallantry. But technology is rapidly dispensing with the need to walk through the trenches or to smell the blood. Future battles will be fought by button pushers using their silicon chips against the adversary’s silicon chips. There can be no heroes and martyrs — just victims. 

Nevertheless even young people remain locked into old modes of thinking. India’s Balakot adventure, followed by an episode of aerial dogfighting, has led to today’s astonishing situation where, on either side of the border, most people are soundly convinced that their side won and the other was ‘taught a lesson’. Heroic actions on one’s own side are still being sought and extolled. Gullible masses are readily falling for their respective national narrative; surely something has gone dreadfully wrong. Particularly between nuclear rivals, nationalism and war are now lethal anachronisms.

The writer teaches physics in Lahore and Islamabad.

This article was first publishedin Dawn.

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84 COMMENTS

  1. Hahahaha,, having flown more sorties tha IAF.. In your dreams. IAF was actively involved in Kargil war & I guess the PAF was waiting for Jet fuels to fly.. Moreover you people keep crying on Kashmir issues that human rights being violated & you itself claim to use aircraft on Baloch separatist. Also the aircraft J 17 block 3 which you people brag about is just a piece of shit it’s so outdated that Romanian Airforce choosed the 2nd hand US’s F16 over your new bunch of shit.

  2. You are a good writer. But it would help if u got some technical facts straight. Two squadrons of F35 could take out whole might of Indian and Pakistan Airforce. A sqn consists of around 18 plus minus 3 or 4 aircraft. So as per your claim, around 40 aircraft can carry something like 1400 missiles….wow….

  3. Ur whole article is a piece of Shit.Ask Abhinadon if he downed an F-16.You coming in out airspace where we have all the upper edges.Do u even know the range and reliability of Aim-120c.U never downed any jet.You see our body language after fight and urs.and u will get reply..

  4. R73 an archiac missile downed the f16 and an amram downed the mig. Clearly, abhi shot down the f16 in close air combat and the Pakis got him in return with their amram armed F16.
    No Chinese missile debris found on the Indian side nor have the pakis reported firing an American or chinki missile. The Pakis claim a bison and a su30.
    Where is the body of at least one other paki missile?

  5. If Indian pilots are that good in their skills so why they cry for one of the world’s smallest country Israel for help that is shame for Indians

  6. Our Indian Air force said that Indian Mig 21 beat Pakistani F-16, so no more evidence need. We believe our Indian Air force.

  7. In the end the tea was fantastic ☕🤣 nice article though 👍 keep it uo these bloody indians will try to make us look like some mad jihadis who always try to kill everyone and make us look like we’re the bad one

    • Yaar Indians aur Pakistani larna kab ban karengay? Dono jahilon ki kom hai. Pakistan ne apnay desh ko chin ke hawalay kar diya aur waha ki media usay ek behtereen deal batati hai. India ka defence budget agar ek saal cancel kar lay toh har ek Indians ko takriban 50 lakh milengay. Garibi sari khatam ho jayegi aur koi bheekh nhi magega. Sirf ek saal mein. Hamaray Dono desho ki sarko par har din zyada log martay hai kyoki barish mein gadday Dikhai nhi dete aur logo ko chalnay ke liye footpath nhi hoti. Stop towing lines of media. Have a independent outlook for life and beyond.

  8. Very good analysis. Though it is understandably slightly in favor of Pakistan since author is a Pakistani.
    Let’s face it in aftermath of Balakot we came out second best. Having been the first mover with our Balakot strike we should have expected a reaction from a very battle hardened adversary like PAF. Instead, our valiant pilots were issued dud Russian missiles that didn’t even have the claimed range. Obviously a result of terrible corruption in procurement. Worse, we were in that we wound up shooting our own helicopter resulting in the highest casualties of the exchange. History shows that better strategy and planning can help a smaller force give a bad time to an overwhelmingly larger one.

    • Yes Indian need to accept that their mig Bison were shot down. What plane shot it down well ask the Pakistani and accept the result. Its J17.

  9. Elementary debate from columnist of Parvez bhai’s repute. Sitting in India we should know what really happened… which was that other plane got shot down… did Abhinandans MiG21 really got shot down paf jet… what is truth…

  10. It’s high time to wind up this type of medias who propogate pakistani agendas in India by accepting money from ISI.

  11. So now Shekhar Kapoor will publish Pakistani authors articles, to fulfil his anti Modi agenda ??? How low are you guys going to get ??

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