Aces High - Combat Pilots of the Subcontinent.
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A Painting by PAF Group Captain Syed Masood Akhtar Hussaini of an Air Combat on 4 December 1971, shows the nature of Air Combat in the Sub Continent. Fast, Low Level and Deadly. This Painting shows Flt Lt Salim Beg Mirza skimming the barren lands North of Peshawar, as his victim, Flt Lt K P Muralidharan in Hunter A462 of No.20 IAF Squadron, cartwheels into the ground. |
In two airwars that India and Pakistan had fought against each other and several other airwars that Pakistan had fought, pilots of both sides came in conflict with each other and quite a significant number of multiple kills by pilots were claimed. Pakistan having quite a good number of pilots who were credited with more than one kill. On the Indian side, there were no instances of pilots being credited with more than one kill, with a couple of exceptions.
One reason being that the average Indian Pilot faced less number of targets than his counter part in the Pakistan Air Force did. The other being, the Pakistani Pilot was better trained than the average Indian Pilot in the 1965 Conflict. The IAF just coming out of the post 1962 expansion had inducted a large number of fresh pilots, who had very few hours behind them and consequently were less trained than the Pakistanis.
In this page and others we look through those pilots who have confirmed multiple kills. Now this is different from claims. the difference between Claims and Kills is vast, a prominent example being that Pakistan claimed nearly 34 aircombat kills in 1965, out of which only 18 are verifiable. India fares no better. 18 Claims versus 9 Confirmations from the Pakistani Side. In 1971 the situation was only slightly better, PAF claimed a total of 40 plus air kills , about half of them are confirmed on Indian side. Recent PAF figures for kills in the Afghan Air War are more reliable
In each of the pages, the site is divided into two sets of names, the first set of names are of pilots of whom there is no doubt about the confirmation of their claims. The second set of names are of pilots whose claims are not confirmed, but for whom there is a possiblity that the confirmation might come at a later date.
The kills are classified as follows.
Confirmed : There is no doubt that the
kill was made by the pilot in question.
Probable : This signifies that the particular loss has occured, but
whether it can be credited to that particular pilot is doubtful.
Unconfirmed: No particular loss has occured relating to the event in
question.
| Pakistani Pilots | Indian Pilots |
| The Combat Pilots of the Sub Continent FAQ | |
| Air Warriors of the Indian Air Force - A Weekly Updated Feature. | |
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