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Aviation History
1969
1969 - 0114.PDF
92 PAKISTAN'S AIR POWER well as for limited maritime reconnaissance duties, the PAF operates the Grumman HU-I6 Albatross amphibian from Mauripur, Karachi. Having started life in 1947. after the partition of India, with two fighter squadrons and one of transport aircraft, a com munications flight and an AOP flight, the PAF was built up with MAP assistance into an effective modern force of ten squadrons in its first decade. Except for its small B-57 bomber element, it was as an all-Sabre force that the PAF faced India's greatly superior air power in 1965. and even today the main Pakistani air strength Vests on the versatile F-86. About half-a-dozen PAF fighter-bomber squadrons still operate Sabres. US sources claiming that 90 Orenda-powered Mk 6s. ostensibly bought by Iran from West Germany in 1966. remained in Pakistan after overhaul. The F-86 is regarded by the PAF as still extremely effective for its combat requirements, which proved in 1965 to be essentially low-level, with emphasis on manoeuvrability and acceleration rather than on pure high speed performance and sophistication. In these respects, when denied new combat equipment from the West after the 1965 war, the PAF found the brand-new locally built MiG-19s offered by the People's Republic of China without cost or political and military strings of any kind almost tailor-made for its needs. Although generally superseded in Soviet and Communist air force service, the MiG-19 combines a Mach 1.4 performance at altitude with FLIGHT International, 16 January 1969 outstanding manoeuvrability and acceleration, multi-mission capability and good firepower. If the PAF was not to be grounded through the sudden deprivation of its supplies. MiG-19 induction had to be as rapid as possible, at the same time as alternative sources were sought for American spares. But acquisition of the MiGs presented many problems of operation and maintenance under very different concepts from those previously employed by the PAF. The MiG is, of course, an all-metric aircraft, and had to be accepted without anything like enough written material —nearly all of which was in Chinese—or even a set of pilot's notes. A nucleus of Pakistan personnel went to China towards the end of 1965 for initial conversion, and it says much for PAF flying and technical standards that the first MiG-19s were introduced in time to fly in the Republic Day parade in March 1966. Only a handful of Chinese technicians briefly accompanied the aircraft into Pakistan, where the first two squadrons were fully operational by September 1966. This is less than half the time normally required for such a process with aircraft of more familiar type. In nearly three years' operation, the PAF has remained extremely satisfied with the MiG-19. which the Chinese call the F-6: and at a front-line base in the northern Punjab recently visited by Flight, most of the experienced pilots preferred it to the F-I04As and Mirage IlIEPs operated from the same airfield. Its spoiler-booster lateral control is lighter even than the Sabre's, and its rate of roll is also said to be better, while the big Fowler-type flaps have a combat setting (at speeds of up to 430kt> for additional manoeuvrability. Because of the high thrust/weight ratio from the RD-9B Type : :: ~":S /
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