Usman
@usman_cph
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Aviation enthusiast, author, engineer …
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The PAF's touch and go with the Il-28 - a thread:
During 1965–71, the Pakistan Air Force had to absorb, at the cost of significant combat capacity, five years of the US arms embargo which was imposed on Pakistan at the start of 1965 Indo-Pak war.
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PAF and the induction of the F-86E - a brief thread
The clandestine procurement of 90 surplus ex-Luftwaffe Canadair Sabre 6s from West Germany by Pakistan could have made for a gripping thriller movie. It involved Germans, including ex-Nazi’s, ...
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The sinking and salvage of Pakistan Navy X-Craft – a thread 🧵
The thread is based on the excellent book “Sea Phoenix – A True Submarine Story” by my alma mater Rear Admiral Mian Zahir Shah (MZS), published in 2005. The original draft of the book was more than 800 pages and had
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Cloak & Dagger - a thread on raising of PAF No. 24 Sqn & their role prior and during the 1965' war.
The role played by No. 24 ELINT Squadron based at Peshawar had always been shrouded in secrecy due to the very nature of their work.
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The Royal Pakistan Air Force ushered in the jet age with the arrival of the first Supermarine Attackers, allocated to No. 11 Sqn in August 1951. A rather poor excuse for a jet aircraft featuring conventional controls, unswept wings, and tail-wheels, it was contracted by British
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The PAF's Combat Commanders School (CCS) 2013-14 Journal featured a detailed write-up by a Wing Commander-ranked officer on the IAF's Dynamic Air Dominance (DAD) doctrine. The article is lengthy and restricted, so I won't post it in full, but his deductions have proven to be
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@NewYorker
A jury didn’t find ‘her experiences’ trust worthy. Raise your editorial standards.
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Air Marshal Nur Khan checks one of the first F-6 (MiG-19) delivered to Pakistan. The type served PAF for thirty-five years and was finally retired in 2002, when the last F-6 squadron (No. 23 ‘Talons’) re-equipped with new F-7PG aircraft. The type logged more than 400,000 sorties
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The old Børsen (stock exchange) building in Copenhagen which was under restoration has gone up in flames just now.
#copenhagen
#k
øbenhavn
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Indian Air Force Network Centric Warfare (NCW) plans - a thread🧵
During 2008, someone at Indian Air Force Air Headquarters (AHQ) had placed a presentation on their planned NCW on the internet-exposed section of their network, allowing Google crawler to save a copy before it was
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Friday photo: Sqn Ldr Shabbir Hussain Syed in the F-86F cockpit. He commanded the No. 14 Sqn based at Dacca during the 1965 war and retired as an Air Marshal. The great war veteran past away on 29 April 2002 and was laid to rest in his native village near Basal.
PS: You might
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A gift from late Michael Fox, a renowned aviation author and artist. Michael was working on a book about Sabre display teams of the world. Unfortunately, he passed away before it could be published.
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For a change, how about a thread covering the 1995 sinking and subsequent salvage of the Pakistan Navy's Cosmos-class (MG-110) submarine over the weekend? Would anyone be interested?
#history
#navy
#PakistanNavy
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A Pakistan Navy Sea King MK 45 has crashed during takeoff, resulting in three fatalities (Lt Cdr Jawad, Lt Cdr Hamza & LUWT Hasnain). This marks the third accident of this type in PN service since its induction in 1977, with two of them being fatal.
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AM Nur Khan enjoys a drink after his para jump. Zafar ‘Mitty’ Masud to his left and behind his left shoulder and partially visible is Mansoor ‘Polly’ Shah. In my opinion Mitty Masud was the finest operational commander PAF ever produced.
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Great feeling to finally receive
the first copy from publisher! This project took a while but finally done. Hope it adds some value to PAF history.
@FalconSyndicate
@FarooqB90714421
@GhostOfPakistan
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We have a special weekend treat for all PAF fans. While researching for the recently published "Eagles of Destiny" books, we discovered a rare gem in the US National Archives. This video is a must-see for anyone interested in aviation history. Enjoy!
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Just an old photo of the first PAF Mirage-IIIRP in an interesting configuration. Had it in my collection but can't recall from where it was acquired.
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The first volume of “Eagles of Destiny, Birth and Growth of Royal Pakistan Air Force and Pakistan Air Force 1947-1971 is now available. The 1st volume covers the 1947-1956 era and the second volume coming out next month will cover the remainder, including the two wars.
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A rather unique photo showing both the PAF F-104Bs (S/N 57-1312 & 57-1309) undergoing maintenance in the old maintenance hangar at Sargodha.
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During this period PAF had continued structurally to suffer a growing offence-defence imbalance with a dwindling number of B-57s and F-86s that had to be replaced by the lighter and shorter-range Chinese F-6s and a worsening obsolescence in its combat force.
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If you can look past the photos of CAS ACM Zaheer Ahmed Baber Sidhu plastered on every single page, the new issue of Second to None mag has some decent info on UAV and radar inductions. For example, there is a good chance PAF will upgrade its Italian-made Falco fleet to support
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... the bomber force. The Il-28 (a Soviet aircraft to be supplied by China) was selected, primarily because it was readily available from a friendly source and also most likely due to its very affordable cost. A team of three experienced B-57 aircrews led by Gp Capt ...
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... Rais A Rafi, a B-57 veteran from the 1965 war, along with Flt Lt's Khadim ul Bashar, Sikandar Mehmood and navigators Flt Lt's Muhammad Akhtar, Salah ud Din Qazi, and Iftikhar Ghauri proceeded to China for conversion on the Il-28 and their subsequent ferry to Pakistan.
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The older F-86s and B-57s were being supported with difficulty by clandestine and piecemeal purchases of spares and by some indigenous manufacture. To support the dwindling numbers of B-57s, it was decided to procure additional aircraft of similar category to supplement ...
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Just a nice photo to cheer one up on a Monday morning. From the latest issue of Second to None magazine though it's a pity the photographer isn't credited.
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.. Iranian & Pakistan Air Force officers and the usual suspect, the US government.
Even though Pakistan was under the American arms embargo, it was able to procure the 90 surplus Canadair Sabre Mk.2s from West Germany via Merex AG, an arms trading firm, opened and run by ..
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... Sinkiang province who prepared food according to our Muslim requirements. I remember the name of the cook, Abdul Hye. We often called him HYE and would respond by answering HAAYE, which in Chinese or Uighur language meant” YES SIR”. It was great but innocent fun.
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Weekend photo: A smiling AM Asghar Khan poses in front of the F-104A after a sortie at Sargodha. In the middle is Sqn Ldr Alauddin "Butch" Ahmed who as OC 18 Sqn was KIA during 65’ war. To his left is Sqn Ldr Sadruddin who was entrusted to induct F-014 and later F-6 into service
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... a decorated ex-Nazi Gerhard Mertins.
The deal is believed to have been done with the blessing of German government and intelligence services but keeping in mind the sensitives around the imposed arms embargo and selling to an active conflict zone country, was to be ...
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... Chinese welcome, the F-6s took off under the leadership of Wg Cdr Mian Sadruddin. The three Il-28s, to be officially known as B-56 in PAF, took off for Pakistan, led by Wg Cdr Rais A Rafi. The aircraft flew in trail with no radar coverage, and only relying on radio ...
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The deal was worth USD 10 million and even though the deal was to be with the Iranian government, Gerhard Mertins is believed to have negotiated directly with the Pakistan embassy in Bonn during 1966. To keep up appearances in subsequent negotiations, PAF officers, ...
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First photo: Air Marshal Nur Khan has a word with F.S Hussain while strapped into a Canadair Sabre Mk 6. Note that aircraft is still sporting a Luftwaffe colour scheme and serials.
Ref: Eagles of Destiny: Volume 2 - Growth and Wars of the Pakistan Air Force 1956-1971
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... done via a third nation. American intelligence was also believed to be in the know but turned a blind eye. Even though the deal was struck with the Iranian government, it was known right from the start that the aircraft were intended for Pakistan.
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The tail gunners were NCOs of the Armament trade. The team also included two engineers and about 15 airmen from different trades. The aircrew flew to Beijing via Dacca and then onwards to the airbase at Xinjian where PAF pilots had already been trained on the F-6 and seemed..
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..that he will fly Vahdati–Mauripur direct! Looking at the expression on my face he said ‘Ali don’t fret, I have worked out everything. Just have them parked just short of the runway, top up to last drop, have two APUs to start up both at the same time and off we will go.’..
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Dear All, the second volume of our book has been published today.
In this volume we cover the transformation of PAF under Asghar khan and how he laid the foundations of a modern air force overcoming challenges he inherited. 1/5
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... with Pakistan, he was also negotiating for the supply of 28 surplus Bundesmarine Sea Hawk 100s and 101 fighters to the Indian Navy. These aircraft were delivered via ship to the Indian port of Cochin (now Kochi) on 23 June 1966.
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Only the interpreter “friends” knew English. But soon we could talk to each other in sign language. After formal receptions and “Kumbais” of “Maut Aiees”, which some of us enjoyed, we settled down to normal life. They operated the Air Force like the Army, based upon the ...
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... it over AAA-infested IAF airfields as that would be a one-way journey. However, No. 8 Sqn was converted to B-56 and started operating the type along with B-57s. The squadron carried out some day and night skip bombing attacks at Sonmiani using B-56s and also took part ..
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... to have created a very good impression of their abilities. The Chinese hosts were very courteous, friendly and keen on training PAF aircrew and also at the same time wanted to learn from them. Rais A Rafi takes up the story: "They had selected Muslim Kitchen staff from ..
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... to a fire started by exhaust flames from a T-33. Along with the wreck of the burned aircraft the third one was also retired and sold for scrap. This brought to an end the brief experiment of PAF with the Il-28.
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The aircrew returned to Pakistan after completing their conversion and after approximately a month proceeded back to Hotien in a C-130 and this time lead by Air Commodore F.S. Hussain, along with several F-6 pilots to ferry the aircraft to Pakistan. After the usual ...
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... controls and was found to be very unmaneuverable. It was difficult to fly at night, particularly at low level and was deemed no match to for the B-57. In PAF it was nicknamed by the pilots as TONGA (horse cart), who had hoped that they would not be required to fly ...
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... four sorties as per the syllabus. Result were very good. Their flight safety and maintenance record was outstanding. Throughout our flying, we could not put a single unserviceability on their Form 781. No accidents either. Amazing. At the end of the course their ...
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The ferrying of the first two F-86Es from Iran to Pakistan was done by Wing Commander F.S. Hussain and Waqar Azim.
Ali Kazim recalls:
‘… The first ferry was done by the legendary F. S. Hussain and Wing Commander Waqar Azim (retired as an Air Marshal). The boss told me ...
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L-to-R: Flt Lt Mazhar Abbas, Flt Lt Fazal Elahi. Mazhar participated in the first strike on Pathankot airbase during ‘65 war & went on to retire as an Air Cdre. Elahi was KIA during 71’ war when his Sabre was hit by AAA during a CAS mission.
@palettefm_bot
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... participated wearning Imperial Iranian Air Force (IIAF) uniforms and ID badges. Some of the PAF officers would go on to keep their IIAF badges as mementos. The first 10 aircraft were ferried to Vahdati Air Force Base located in South Iran by Luftwaffe pilots in ...
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..lightly defended targets. An idea to use these aircraft for maritime roles was conceived and considered but abandoned quickly as the aircraft presumably did not offer much space and flexibility to house the required equipment. Due to their limited operational utilisation..
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... no contact with the F-6 formation and while the F-6s landed in Peshawar due to their short range, the B-56s pressed on to Sargodha. After a quick refuelling stop, the three aircraft took off for Mauripur where they landed just before dusk. Next day Rais A. Rafi gave a...
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...according to the briefed exercise; not a slight diversion was allowed. Our instructors sitting by the side and interpreter, often a woman, sitting in the tail gunner’s cockpit had no problem in teaching us. We could have gone solo after one dual [flight] but had to do ...
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HD image of Exercise Spears of Victory courtesy of Royal Air Force.
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From back in the day when chaar-so-sath (407) engaged the arrester barrier system at Sargodha. Can't recall the cause or pilot involved but the aircraft suffered some minor damage to intakes but was repaired and put back in service.
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... Soviet system. Most of the senior commanders were serving Army. But squadron commander downwards were Air Force. The Base Commander often sat in the mobile. The morning briefing started with reading of Mao’s sayings from the Red Book. Everyone had to fly strictly ...
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... the aircraft were retired after just a few years and well before they could be used in the 1971 war. The three aircraft were seen parked at Mauripur for several years before two of them were written off due ...
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... April 1966, hopping across various European bases to refuel. The aircraft flew into Vahdati in 4-ship formations once a week or every few days. The Luftwaffe pilots would park the aircraft, switch off and then would be flown to Tehran for their subsequent return flight.
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Ref: Eagles of Destiny: Volume 2 - Growth and Wars of the Pakistan Air Force 1956-1971
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... senior officers from Beijing HQ with Gp Capt Inam ul Haq, our Air Attache, visited us. I was asked to give my impressions. After consulting Gp Capt Inam, I pointed out to our friends that they ought to give more freedom of flying to their pilots. This was appreciated."
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... compasses, joined over the clouds and flew over the Himalayas, which they could not see due to extensive cloud cover, hoping to home to Gilgit. The navigators took a sigh of relief when Gilgit beacon responded. The aircraft maintained a strict RT silence, so there was...
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... Was done that way. I took a deep sigh of relief the moment I got the message that they had landed at Mauripur. All 90 went to Pakistan in Luftwaffe colours. The other 88 went Vahdati–Shiraz–Mauripur.’
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... dual check to Air Cdre Masroor Hussain, the Base Commander. After an assessment of the aircraft based on aircrews’ feedback, it was decided not to fly this type against heavily defended targets. The Il-28, being a first-generation makeshift light bomber, had hard ...
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Early 60’s at Mauripur. L-R: Ali Kazim, Rashid A Bhatti, Sajad Haider & Irshad Ahmad Qureshi.
Rashid Bhatti would fly F-104’s during the 71’ war & retired as an Air Cdr. Ali Kazim found himself in Iran after 65’ war testing the 90 F-86E’s the Germans had sold.
@SajadHaider
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... in a PAF level day and night exercise, while deployed at Mianwali air base. The aircraft was deemed very reliable from the serviceability point of view but considered a dead duck operationally. It was kept for use in emergency situations and that too against only ...
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At Vahdati Air Base, the aircraft were test flown by a group of PAF pilots led by Squadron Leader Ali Kazim. Over the following months, the rest of the aircraft were also ferried, with the last 20 aircraft delivered in December 1966.
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The acquisition of these Sabres was a shot in the arm for PAF. These aircraft equipped four squadrons, No. 17, 18 and 19 Squadrons in West Pakistan and No. 14 Squadron, which was still deployed in East Pakistan.
While Gerhard Mertins was negotiating Sabres ...
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During Sept 2008, someone at Indian Air Force HQ mistakenly placed a PPT presentation on part of their network which was web facing. It was quickly taken down but not before Google's web crawler had done its job. The presentation contained details about planned core network,
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... one of the few senior USAF personnel who eventually spoke about it recalled Iqbal as "...one of the finest officers with whom he had ever worked."
Reference: Eagles of Destiny, Volume 2 - Growth and Wars of the Pakistan Air Force 1956-1971
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When T-129 Attack Helicopter was being put through its paces in Pakistan.
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These new, second-generation vessels were not only bigger compared to first-generation Midgets; they had much better equipment, and even had a torpedo firing capability. They were, in fact, mini-submarines. Built in Karachi under the supervision of the Italian Cosmos Company,
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The fact of U2 flights being staged via Peshawar by the CIA is well known, largely due to the U2 piloted by Francis Gary Powers being shot down on 1 May 1960, resulting in a diplomatic crisis between the USA and Soviet Union.
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Weekend photo: PAF technicians and armament fitters pose in front of a F-86F Sabre at Sargodha - circa 1964-1965.
@palettefm_bot
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Weekend photo: Sharbat Ali Changezi prepares for a sortie in F-86F - circa 1962. Sharbat Ali Changezi went on to bag a IAF Hunter flown by Sqn Ldr Deba P. Chatterjee over Lahore on 20 Sep 65’ and retired as an Air Marshal.
@palettefm_bot
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The squadron was raised on 5 Dec 1962, with Sqn Ldr Mohammad Iqbal as its first OC and with a skeleton staff of pilots, navigators, and maintenance crew. The squadron was equipped with two specially modified RB-57Bs (S/N 52-1536 and 52-1573) between Dec 1962 and Feb 1963.
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Submarines come in all shapes and sizes. The biggest are the Russian submarines that weigh up to 25,000 tons. The Pakistani submarines pale in comparison - a mere 1,000 tons, even though this was the normal tonnage for most of the submarines used in the Second World War. But
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PNS Iqbal, a naval establishment and the base of the Special Service Group (Navy) since 1968 had been earlier home to a number of chariots and six 62-ton X-Craft of Italian design built locally. These six older generation X-Craft were phased out by the three more advanced
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What is less known are the ELINT and telemetry missions flown by the US Navy, also from Peshawar, against Soviet missile test sites such as Kapustin Yar among others, which were deemed so valuable to the NSA that after the US Navy team was evicted in the early 1960s for ...
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The extensively modified RB-57Fs were entrusted with missions of telemetry collections against launches at Soviet missile ranges and, like earlier examples, while US-owned, were fully maintained and manned by PAF aircrews. Approximately 40 PAF officers and enlisted ...
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No. 24 Squadron was unique in the sense that it was raised as part of that compromise, manned by both US and Pakistani aircrew, and had aircraft on strength that were Pakistani- and US-owned.
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These modifications were done at General Dynamics under the Big Safari program, which was a USAF-run program to modify aircraft for special purposes. These two special mission RB-57Bs, US-owned but sporting PAF insignia and markings, were housed at one of the two large ...
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... hangars available at Peshawar air station. While the USAF team maintained the telemetry suite, the maintenance and missions were conducted by the PAF. These aircraft were withdrawn from Peshawar in March 1964 and replaced with two RB-57F, S/N 63-13286 and 63-13287.
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Also it seems TPS-77MR and YLC-18A have been inducted in decent numbers.
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Within a few months, the PN will go on to recover the sunk X-Craft by utilizing its own manpower and budget, have it upgraded and put back in the service.
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After equalizing the pressure inside the hull, the upper hatch was opened to fully flood the X-Craft, and the crew started escaping via the bridge hatch one at a time – all fourteen made it back to the surface. Onshore alarm bells had started ringing after the X-Craft has failed
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The squadron lost its OC, Squadron Leader M. Iqbal, and his navigator, Flight Lieutenant Lodhi, in a tragic case of fratricide on 11 September, while they were practicing homing technique against an old Marconi radar deployed at Rahwali.
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... personnel had been trained earlier in the USA for maintaining these sensitive aircraft along with flight training for pilots and navigators. Two additional modified RB-57Bs (S/N 53-3934 and 53-3961), based on two B-57Bs taken from PAF No. 31 Wing, were ...
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... with the Survey of Pakistan, allowing them to produce updated large-scale maps of the border regions. Once the war broke out on 6 September, all telemetry missions for the US were stopped as the focus shifted towards supporting their own forces. Members of ...
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... repeated violations of restricted Pakistani and Indian airspace, a compromise was reached which allowed US-owned special mission aircraft, but flown by PAF aircrew, to conduct the same missions.
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@clark_aviation
I believe the aim was to break the 16 Sabres loop record set by PAF on February 2, 1958 over Mauripur .
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Now lying all stopped on the bottom, the boat was on an even keel. The time was 1330 PST, and it was decided to have lunch. It was from this time onwards that things started to go wrong. After lunch, it was decided to eject the weighted and stabbed packets of trash via the Trash
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... the successful standup of the operation. As the USAF-PAF operation wound up after the war and remained shrouded in secrecy for decades to come, ...
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On 23rd of September 1995, Lieutenant Commander Noor ul Islam was the acting XO of Iqbal as the actual XO was on one month leave. This was added responsibility on top of being the OI/C X-Craft-02, Training Officer and several other duties. That morning another officer was away as
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Before setting sail, all pre-cast-off checks had been carried out satisfactorily by Lieutenant Commander Arshad Mehmood, the acting 2I/C. There are about eighty checks, and they take about an hour to go through. The main one is the vacuum test, which is a test for leaks. Diving
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The newly deployed Army air defense unit, entrusted with guarding the radar, was not notified of the practice raid. Iqbal was considered something of a genius when it came to electronic warfare and was considered by the USAF to be absolutely essential for ...
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