How India brought down the US’ supersonic man

The 1971 India-Pakistan war didn’t turn out very well from the US’ point of view. For one particular American it went particularly bad. Chuck Yeager, the legendary test pilot and the first man to break the sound barrier, was dispatched by the US government to train Pakistani air force pilots but ended up as target practice for the Indian Air Force, and in the process kicked up a diplomatic storm in a war situation.

Yeager’s presence in Pakistan was one of the surprises of the Cold War. In an article titled, “The Right Stuff in the Wrong Place,” by Edward C. Ingraham, a former US diplomat in Pakistan, recalls how Yeager was called to Islamabad in 1971 to head the Military Assistance Advisory Group (MAAG) – a rather fanciful name for a bunch of thugs teaching other thugs how to fight.

It wasn’t a terribly exciting job: “All that the chief of the advisory group had to do was to teach Pakistanis how to use American military equipment without killing themselves in the process,” writes Ingraham.

Among the perks Yeager enjoyed was a twin-engine Beechcraft, an airplane supplied by the Pentagon. It was his pride and joy and he often used the aircraft for transporting the US ambassador on fishing expeditions in Pakistan’s northwest mountains.

Yeager: Loyal Pakistani!

Yeager may have been a celebrated American icon, but here’s what Ingraham says about his nonchalant attitude. “We at the embassy were increasingly preoccupied with the deepening crisis (the Pakistan Army murdered more than 3,000,000 civilians in then East Pakistan, now Bangladesh). Meetings became more frequent and more tense. We were troubled by the complex questions that the conflict raised. No such doubts seemed to cross the mind of Chuck Yeager. I remember one occasion on which the ambassador asked Yeager for his assessment of how long the Pakistani forces in the East could withstand an all-out attack by India. “We could hold them off for maybe a month,” he replied, “but beyond that we wouldn’t have a chance without help from outside.” It took the rest of us a moment to fathom what he was saying, not realising at first that “we” was West Pakistan, not the United States.”

Clearly, Yeager appeared blithely indifferent to the Pakistani killing machine which was mowing down around 10,000 Bengalis daily from 1970 to 1971.

After the meeting, Ingraham requested Yeager to be be a little more even-handed in his comments. Yeager gave him a withering glance. “Goddamn it, we’re assigned to Pakistan,” he said. “What’s wrong with being loyal?!”

“The dictator of Pakistan at the time, the one who had ordered the crackdown in the East, was a dim-witted general named Yahya Khan. Way over his head in events he couldn’t begin to understand, Yahya took increasingly to brooding and drinking,” writes Ingraham.

“In December of 1971, with Indian supplied guerrillas applying more pressure on his beleaguered forces, Yahya decided on a last, hopeless gesture of defiance. He ordered what was left of his armed forces to attack India directly from the West. His air force roared across the border on the afternoon of December 3 to bomb Indian air bases, while his army crashed into India’s defences on the Western frontier.”

Getting Personal

Yeager’s hatred for Indians was unconcealed. According to Ingraham, he spent the first hours of the war stalking the Indian embassy in Islamabad, spouting curses at Indians and assuring anyone who would listen that the Pakistani army would be in New Delhi within a week. It was the morning after the first Pakistani airstrike that Yeager began to take the war with India personally.

On the eve of their attack, the Pakistanis, realising the inevitability of a massive Indian retaliation, evacuated their planes from airfields close to the Indian border and moved them to airfields near the Iranian border.

Strangely, no one thought to warn General Yeager.

Taking aim at Yeager

The thread of this story now passes on to Admiral Arun Prakash. An aircraft carrier pilot in 1971, he was an Indian Navy lieutenant on deputation with the Indian Air Force when the war broke out.

In an article he wrote for Vayu Aerospace Review in 2007, Prakash presents a vivid account of his unexpected encounter with Yeager. As briefings for the first wave of retaliatory strikes on Pakistan were being conducted, Prakash had drawn a two-aircraft mission against the PAF base of Chaklala, located south east of Islamabad.

Flying in low under the radar, they climbed to 2000 feet as they neared the target. As Chaklala airfield came into view they scanned the runways for Pakistani fighters but were disappointed to see only two small planes. Dodging antiaircraft fire, Prakash blasted both to smithereens with 30mm cannon fire. One was Yeager’s Beechcraft and the other was a Twin Otter used by Canadian UN forces.

Fishing in troubled waters

When Yeager discovered his plane was smashed, he rushed to the US embassy in Islamabad and started yelling like a deranged maniac. His voice resounding through the embassy, he said the Indian pilot not only knew exactly what he was doing but had been specifically instructed by the Indian prime minister to blast Yeager’s plane. In his autobiography, he later said that it was the “Indian way of giving Uncle Sam the finger”.

Yeager pressured the US embassy in Pakistan into sending a top priority cable to Washington that described the incident as a “deliberate affront to the American nation and recommended immediate countermeasures”. Basically, a desperate and distracted Yeager was calling for the American bombing of India, something that President Richard Nixon and his Secretary of State Henry Kissinger were already mulling.

But, says Ingraham: “I don’t think we ever got an answer.” With the Russians on India’s side in the conflict, the American defence establishment had its hands full. Nobody had time for Yeager’s antics.

However, Ingraham says there are clues Yeager played an active role in the war. A Pakistani businessman, son of a senior general, told him “excitedly that Yeager had moved into the air force base at Peshawar and was personally directing the grateful Pakistanis in deploying their fighter squadrons against the Indians. Another swore he had seen Yeager emerge from a just-landed jet fighter at the Peshawar base.

Later, in his autobiography, Yeager, the subject of Tom Wolfe’s much-acclaimed book “The Right Stuff” and a Hollywood movie, wrote a lot of nasty things about Indians, including downright lies about the IAF’s performance. Among the things he wrote was the air war lasted two weeks and the Pakistanis “kicked the Indians’ ass”, scoring a three-to-one kill ratio, knocking out 102 Russian-made Indian jets and losing 34 airplanes of their own.

Beyond the fog of war

The reality is that it took the IAF just over a week to achieve complete domination of the subcontinent’s skies. A measure of the IAF’s air supremacy was the million-man open air rallies held by the Indian prime minister in northern Indian cities, a week into the war. This couldn’t have been possible if Pakistani planes were still airborne.

Sure, the IAF did lose a slightly larger number of aircraft but this was mainly because the Indians were flying a broad range of missions. Take the six Sukhoi-7 squadrons that were inducted into the IAF just a few months before the war. From the morning of December 4 until the ceasefire on December 17, these hardy fighters were responsible for the bulk of attacks by day, flying nearly 1500 offensive sorties.

Pakistani propaganda, backed up by Yeager, had claimed 34 Sukhoi-7s destroyed, but in fact just 14 were lost. Perhaps the best rebuttal to Yeager’s lies is military historian Pushpindar Singh Chopra’s “A Whale of a Fighter”. He says the plane’s losses were commensurate with the scale of effort, if not below it. “The Sukhoi-7 was said to have spawned a special breed of pilot, combat-hardened and confident of both his and his aircraft’s prowess,” says Chopra.

Sorties were being launched at an unprecedented rate of six per pilot per day. Yeager himself admits “India flew numerous raids against Pakistani airfields with brand new Sukhoi-7 bombers being escorted in with MiG-21s”.

While Pakistani pilots were obsessed with aerial combat, IAF tactics were highly sophisticated in nature, involving bomber escorts, tactical recce, ground attack and dummy runs to divert Pakistani interceptors from the main targets. Plus, the IAF had to reckon with the dozens of brand new aircraft being supplied to Pakistan by Muslim countries like Jordan, Turkey and the UAE.

Most missions flown by Indian pilots were conducted by day and at low level, with the pilots making repeated attacks on well defended targets. Indian aircraft flew into Pakistani skies thick with flak, virtually non-stop during the 14-day war. Many Bengali guerrillas later told the victorious Indian Army that it was the epic sight of battles fought over their skies by Indian air aces and the sight of Indian aircraft diving in on Pakistani positions that inspired them to fight.

Indeed, Indian historians like Chopra have painstakingly chronicled the details of virtually every sortie undertaken by the IAF and PAF and have tabulated the losses and kills on both sides to nail the outrageous lies that were peddled by the PAF and later gleefully published by Western writers.

In this backdrop, the Pakistani claim (backed by Yeager) that they won the air war is as hollow as a Chaklala swamp reed. In the Battle of Britain during World War II, the Germans lost 2000 fewer aircraft than the allies and yet the Luftwaffe lost that air war. Similarly, the IAF lost more aircraft than the PAF, but the IAF came out on top. Not even Yeager’s biased testimony can take that away from Indians.

Source: IDRUS

India is now 6th nation to have a nuclear sub

                                        INS Chakra can outrun Pakistani and Chinese subs

India’s long hunt for a nuclear submarine is finally over. But it will take the country another 10-12 months to get an operational nuclear weapon triad the capability to fire nukes from land, air and sea.
India on Monday became the world’s sixth country after the US, Russia, France, the UK and China to operate nuclear-powered submarines when the Russian Akula-II class submarine K-152 Nerpa was commissioned into Indian Navy as INS Chakra on a 10-year lease under a secretive almost $1-billion contract inked in 2004.
The 8,140-tonne INS Chakra, however, is not armed with long-range nuclear missiles, like the Russian SS-N-21 cruise missiles with an over 2,500km range, due to international nonproliferation treaties like the Missile Technology Control Regime.

The Indian nuclear triads elusive underwater leg will only come when the homegrown nuclear submarine, the over 6,000-tonne INS Arihant equipped to carry a dozen K-15 (750km) or four K-4 (3,500km) ballistic missiles, becomes fully operational by early-2013.India has the land and air legs in the shape of the Agni series of missiles and fighter jets capable of carrying nuclear weapons.

Defence ministry sources said INS Chakra, commissioned at the Primorye region in far south-eastern Russia in a ceremony attended by top Indian and Russian officials, would soon set sail for India. It will be based at Visakhapatnam, next to where INS Arihant is slated to begin extensive sea trials in February-M arch after the ongoing harbour-acceptance trials.
Though it may not add to India’s nuclear deterrence posture, INS Chakra will give some much-needed muscle to India’s depleting underwater combat arm, which has only 14 ageing conventional submarines to brandish. India is in talks for the lease of another Akula-II class submarine from Russia, say sources.
Nuclear-powered submarines are stealthy since they can operate underwater at long ranges for months unlike diesel-electric submarines that need to surface every few days to get oxygen to recharge their batteries.
INS Chakra will also be armed with the 300 km range Klub-S land-attack cruise missiles, which India deploys on its Kilo-class conventional submarines as well as other missiles and advanced torpedoes.
It will be deadly hunter-killer of enemy submarines and warships, as also provide effective protection to a fleet at sea. It can also provide cover to the nuclear-armed INS Arihant if required. With a dived speed of 30-35 knots, INS Chakra will be able to outrun any current Pakistani or Chinese submarine, said a source.

Boeing 797 -- WOW!!

Look at this new aircraft....

Boeing is preparing a 1000 passenger jet that could reshape the Air travel industry
for the next 100 years. The radically Blended Wing sign has been developed by Boeing in cooperation with the NASA Langley Research Center. The mammoth plane will have a wing span of 265 feet compared to the 747's 211 feet, and is designed to fit within the newly created terminals used for the 555 seat Airbus A380, which is 262 feet wide. 

The new 797 is in direct response to the Airbus A380 which has racked up 159 orders already. Boeing decided to kill its 747X stretched super jumbo in 2003 after little interest was shown by airline companies, but has continued to develop the ultimate Airbus crusher 797 for years at its Phantom Works research facility in Long Beach, Calif.

The Airbus A380 has been in the works since 1999 and has accumulated $13 billion in development costs, which gives Boeing a huge advantage now that Airbus has committed to the older style tubular aircraft for decades to come.

There are several big advantages to the blended wing design, the most important being the lift to drag ratio which is expected to increase by an amazing 50%, with overall weight reduced by 25%, making it an estimated 33% more efficient than the A380, and making Airbus's $13 billion dollar investment look pretty shaky.

High body rigidity is another key factor in blended wing aircraft, It reduces turbulence and creates less stress on the air frame which adds to efficiency, giving the 797 a tremendous 8800 nautical mile range with its 1000 passengers flying comfortably at mach 0.88 or 654 mph cruising speed, another advantage over the Airbus tube-and-wing designed A380's 570 mph. 

The exact date for introduction is unclear, yet the battle lines are clearly drawn in the high-stakes war for future civilian air supremacy.

India completes more air refueling trials

India completes more air refueling trials
by Staff Writers
New Delhi (UPI) Jan 6, 2012

India's air force has completed more trials of EADS Airbus 330 and an Ilyushin 78 air-to-air refueling aircraft as part of its latest attempt to purchase six planes, likely for around $2 billion.The capability assessment at Gwalior Air Base in north central India followed trials in Spain and Russia in July, a report by the Indian news Web site Rediff.com said.

The latest tender for a Multi-role Tanker Transport was reissued in September 2010, nine months after a similar MRTT contract featuring the same two tankers for around $1.06 billion was stopped. India's finance ministry questioned the value for money offered during the previous tender issued in 2006. A major issue was the fact that the air force already operates six of the four-engine IL-78 tankers bought in 2004.

The Finance Ministry argued that buying more Ilyushins would be cheaper.

Despite this, the air force chose the Airbus 330 over the Il-78 in 2009. But the Finance Ministry quashed the deal in early 2010, saying a re-tender was needed using better procurement processes and assessment methods. 

The Gwalior trials had the planes refueling Su-30MKI, Mirage 2000H and MiG-29 aircraft operated by the Indian air force, the Rediff report said.Sealed bids from Airbus and Ilyushin will be opened later this year.

Last month, Russia and India signed a preliminary deal for Russia to sell 42 more Su-30 MKI fighter jets in kit form and provide technical assistance during their production.The jets will be assembled in India by Hindustan Aeronautics. The aircraft's integrated electronic warfare system has a Tarang radar warning system made by the Indian government's Defense Research and Development Organization. The Airbus A330 tanker is operated by Australia, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and the United Kingdom.

In November, Australia took delivery of its third A330 MRTT as part of a five-aircraft order. It was converted from an Airbus A330 jetliner airframe by Qantas Defense Services in Brisbane, Australia, Airbus said at the time. Australia's fourth and fifth MRTT aircraft are scheduled for delivery this year.Airbus's attempt to break into the U.S. defense market has suffered so far a similar fate to that its Indian experience.

The U.S. Air Force issued a request for proposal for 100 air-to-air tanker in 2006 and Airbus went head to head with Boeing and its 767.Airbus, with its partner Northrop Grumman won the U.S. Air Force contract in mid 2008 but a complaint by Boeing over the lease agreement meant the tender was reissued in 2009.Boeing won the $35 billion contract in February 2011.

After Nobel and Padma, knighthood for "Venki"

After Nobel and Padma, knighthood for "Venki" - London, Dec. 30: "Arise, Sir Venki," the Queen will be able to say very soon, tapping him on the shoulder with a sword.

Venkatraman Ramakrishnan, who won the Nobel Prize for chemistry in 2009, is being honoured with a knighthood in the New Year's honours, The Telegraph  disclosed.The 59-year-old professor, who prefers to be addressed simply as "Venki", is being recognised "for services to molecular biology", the citation will say.

Ramakrishnan, who was born in Chidambaram in Cuddalore district of Tamil Nadu in 1952, shared the Nobel Prize for chemistry for his work on ribosomes with two other scientists, Thomas A. Steitz, an American, and Ada Yonath, an Israeli.They had made significant advances in their "studies of the structure and function of the ribosome".

After graduating from Baroda, Ramakrishnan went to the US where he obtained his PhD and began his research. But for the past 12 years, he has been living in Cambridge, cycling every morning from his home in the village of Grantchester to his laboratory.

He has never owned a car.

He works in the Laboratory of Molecular Biology at the Medical Research Council, which is located in the sprawling complex that makes up Addenbrooke's Hospital in Cambridge.

Ramakrishnan and his wife, Vera Rosenberry, an author and illustrator of children's books, and one of their children can go to Buckingham Palace for the investiture.

Ramakrishnan, who will tomorrow make his way from Chennai to Madurai accompanied by his wife and sister, was characteristically modest when contacted today by The Telegraph: "This is an honour that reflects the quality of science supported by the Medical Research Council, in particular at the Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge. In my case, credit should go to the numerous dedicated post docs, students, associates and colleagues who made crucial contributions to the work."

He added: " In the current debate about immigration, it is worth noting that this award is yet another example of the numerous contributions that immigrants make to British society. Indeed, many of the founding members of the Laboratory of Molecular Biology were immigrants themselves, and they helped to revolutionise modern biology."

Like many senior academics, Ramakrishnan feels the UK government's immigration policy is making it harder for scholars to come to Britain.

When it comes to Americans who have received honorary knighthoods, the list is distinguished ' President Ronald Reagan, Bill Gates, Steven Spielberg, Bob Hope and General Norman Schwarzkopf, who was the US commander during the first Gulf War.

But since Ramakrishnan and his wife are American and British dual nationals, the knighthood he receives will be "the real thing". So he could henceforth be addressed as Professor Sir Venkatraman Ramakrishnan or Sir Venkatraman or even Sir Venkat ' although he would probably want to go on being called "Venki" by his friends.

The UK is following the example of India. Ramakrishnan received India's second highest civilian honour, the Padma Vibhushan, in 2010. Over the past four decades, the professor has led an itinerant existence.

"Many universities have claimed me and many institutions… the University of Utah has claimed me, Yale University has claimed me, Ohio University has claimed me, that is perfectly understandable…. Baroda University is proud of me," Ramakrishnan once told The Telegraph. "That's fine because they all contributed to my development at different stages in my career so I am perfectly happy with that

To Hell With Jan Lokpal!

A Battle We Must Not Lose

Forget Anna Hazare. The Jan Lokpal movement can go to hell for all I care. Let us just look at the issues over which the battle between the Government and us citizens is being fought. And then let’s decide where we want to stand, each one of us, on the issue of corruption. 

The first question is: Do corruption and bribery hurt you? If they do, do you want a solution? If your answer is yes to both, do you think such a solution lies with an independent authority? Or do you think a corrupt Government can fight corruption on its own, and within its own ranks? If your answer is no to that, then we need to create an independent institution to fight corruption. Right? Well, that’s precisely what Anna is asking for. He is asking for a Lokpal that the Government cannot influence nor manipulate. This is the first battle.

The second battle is over four things. One: Should the Prime Minister come under the purview of the Lokpal? Almost everyone I know thinks he should. A honest Prime Minister wouldn’t care. A dishonest one must be supervised. Or else, we will have cases like Bofors that will never ever be resolved. Two: Should Members of Parliament come under the Lokpal? I have not met a single person till date who thinks that our MPs are so honest that they need not be supervised. My guess is if a referendum is ever taken, Anna will get a 100% yes to this question, given what people think of our politicians and the standards of probity in public life. The third question is even more obvious: Do all public servants need to come under the Lokpal? My guess is India’s answer will be yes, yes, yes. Every day, in every area of our life and work, we are constantly harassed, intimidated and extorted by corrupt Government officers. The poorer you are, the worse is the torture. So yes, every public servant, every Government officer must come under the Lokpal. Question four: Who should give permission to file an FIR against a corrupt judge? If the Lokpal can look into corruption charges against the PM, the MPs and Government servants, isn’t it only logical to expect it to do the same against judges? 

The third and final battle is over an even simpler thing: The Citizen’s Charter. Should every Government office have such a Charter which will clearly state which officer will do what work and in how much time? And should an officer who refuses to do his work in time or asks for a bribe to move a file be punished? The Government says a charter is fine but Government servants must not be penalised if they don’t do their work! Anna believes that officers not doing their work in time amounts to corruption and must face the same treatment. Isn’t it rather obvious what India thinks about this?

Do we really need a referendum on these simple, basic issues? I seriously doubt it. Every Indian will endorse the idea of a Lokpal as Anna and his team have envisioned it, with the help of thousands of Indians who have contributed online to the process of drafting the bill.

Yes, there are genuine fears that we should not create yet another monster out there, who will make life more difficult for us than it already is. But even that has been addressed rather adroitly by Anna’s team. It is a complex process, true but it also ensures that the choice is wisely made. And what if there are charges against the Lokpal? Well, there’s a provision there too. You can go straight to the Supreme Court and seek justice out there.

So why are we arguing so much over this Bill? Why is the Government digging its heels in and refusing to listen to us citizens? Why must Anna go on a hunger strike all over again to press home the point that corruption must be fought back? I guess it’s a question of both ego and fear. No one likes to give up the power they have, and certainly not the Government. In fact, it’s always trying to interfere more and more in our lives, grab more and more authority, more and more space. And fear? Well, I guess we all know the answer to that. This is possibly the most corrupt Government we have ever had. It has good reason to be scared.

Pritish Nandy

Iran threatens to close Strait of Hormuz

The ongoing naval drills in Iran's southern waters should be seen as a serious warning to the West about potential closure of the Strait of Hormuz, the semi-official Fars news agency quoted a senior Iranian lawmaker as saying on Monday

Iranian warship

 

 

"These wargames are a warning to the Western countries about the closure of the Strait of Hormuz," member of the parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy Commission Zohreh Elahian told Fars.

"If any threat is posed to Iran, the Islamic Republic is capable of closing the Strait of Hormuz," Elahian said.

"The naval drills in the Persian Gulf and the Sea of Oman display the power and domination of the Islamic Republic of Iran's Navy over the regional waters," she added.

"The wargames are related to the power of deterrence, dominance and superiority over the region and are a symbol of the defensive and deterrence power of the Islamic republic's ruling system and Armed Forces," said the lawmaker.

"The enforcement of the decision to close of the Strait of Hormuz is certainly within Iran's armed forces' capability," semi-official ILNA labour news agency cited Iranian Navy commander Habibollah Sayyari as saying last week."But such a decision should be made by the country's top authorities."

"Displaying Iran's defensive and deterrent power as well as relaying a message of peace and friendship in the Strait of Hormuz and the free waters are the main objectives of the drill," Sayyari said.

"It will also display the country's power to control the region as well as testing new missiles, torpedoes and weapons," Sayyari said.

The Iranian Navy launched the 10-day massive naval exercises, dubbed "Velayat 90" in the international waters on Saturday as the tension between the West and Iran is running high over the later's nuclear programme.

Different classes of submarines, including Tareq and Ghadir, the newest ground-to-sea missile systems and torpedoes will be employed in the maneuvers.

It is the first time the Iranian Navy carries out naval drills in such a vast area, covering an area of 2,000 km stretching from the east of the Strait of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf to the Gulf of Aden, Sayyari said.

The Western countries have long blamed Iran over its nuclear programme but Iran has argued that its nuclear programme is only for peaceful purposes.

Iran's archrivals, the U.S. and Israel, have not ruled out the use of force against Iran over its nuclear issue.

Iranian officials has constantly reaffirmed that Iran would respond to any attacks targeting their country.

Earlier this month, Parviz Sorouri, a member of the Iranian Majlis National Security and Foreign Policy Commission, said that Iran plans to practice its ability to close the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world's most important passages for exports of crude oil and oil products from littoral states of the Persian Gulf.

Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast said later that closing the Strait of Hormuz is not on Iran's agenda since Iran believes in upholding the stability and peace of the region.

China.org.cn, December 27, 2011