Reliving the days of Gnat’s glory

TIMES NEWS NETWORK
November 19, 2008

Bangalore: The Gnat jet fighter, which earned its name as ‘Sabre Slayer’ in the two India-Pakistan wars of 1965 and 1971, will be honoured in its golden jubilee celebration on November 21. The Canadair Sabre was a jet fighter built by Pakistan under licence from the US.

Around 200 pilots, engineers and flight-testers of yesteryear and their families from India and abroad will come to Bangalore for the event, which is being jointly organized by Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL) and the Indian Air Force (IAF) at the former’s Ghatge Convention Centre on Old Airport Road.

Some famous pilots of the previous generation have already arrived in Bangalore.
Air chief marshal, F H Major, will be the chief guest. A film on Gnat made by renowned aviation film-maker Kunal Verma will be screened at the event. A book on the old fighter jet edited by Pushpinder Singh will also be released, plus a photo exhibition will be held.

“The event holds significance as never before because we have not seen the coming together of so many experts associated with Gnat under one roof. IAF and HAL are proud to be associated with this event as it will help next generation aviators and engineers rub shoulders with some of the jewels of the past,” said chairman of the organizing team, Sanjeev Sahi.

HAL was the licensed producer of the Gnat; it made nearly 200 of them for the IAF. Apart from the IAF, the original designers and builders of the Gnat, Folland Aviation of the UK, was the only major operator of the aircraft in both combat and training.

KILLER INSTINCT: The good old Gnats

Inter-Command Weapons Meet – Another View

By Gp Capt Ajit K Agtey (Retd)

Velu’s story has finally got me to type out the following piece. I had decided to stay silent as talking of it, would have amounted to blowing one’s own trumpet, BUT WHAT THE HELL, lets do it.

I am referring to the same Inter Commabd Weapons Meet of November 1972. Western Air Command had 4 Gnat squadrons, namely 2,9,18 and23. Each squadron had to depute one pilot for each event. For R/P WAC found a bunch of four young, aggressive Flying Officers. They were Parvez Khokhar (9 Sqn),VP Vadera (23 Sqn), VK Sharma (18 Sqn) and yours truly(2 Sqn). It would not be out of place to state that senior most team member had less than 4 years service and the junior most ie self had less than 3 years. The other two were in between.

The range was all time famous SIDHWANKHAS range and the base of operation was Halwara. On the due date we all gathered at Halwara and the practice sessions began. The other team members/leaders were legends like Mickey Jatar (Maruts), Godfrey Salins (Mig 21 F/G), Johnney Greene (Gnat Cine). The tail was brought up by us.

Halwara bar was as always the debrief centre, and we were generally being taught the finer points of R/P firing.

The format was, as already spelt out by Velu. The two best rockets of each member were to be assessed. The load we were carrying was 4, T-10s.

On the appointed day the team got airborne in copybook fashion and went and fired our load in total silence and returned. To cut a long story short the results were 16 DIRECT HITS. End of Story

That evening when we walked into the bar Mickey Jatar got up, shook us by the hand and said that it would be an honour for him to stand us a drink, as he had never seen scores of this kind.

The G- bird was a sheer delight to fly and was a very versatile weapons platform.

The team is still around Parvez is in Bangalore, Vady in Jet airways in Delhi, VK Sharma in corporate flying in Delhi and yours truly in Jet Airways in Bangalore. Looking forward to meeting up with all the stalwarts.

A Gnat Story

By Gp Capt PM Velankar VM (Retd)

Count down has started long back . Now , whenever we open “Gnat50years” site , we see the decreasing number of days . Today when I opened the site I saw “5 days” . I also notice that as the number of days are decreasing , so are the contributions towards posts and the comments .
Continue reading A Gnat Story

How Gnat Rolls

By Air Commodore A.C.Goel AVSM (Retd.) I A F [TUBBY To IAF]

How Gnat Rolls

Having flown Toofanis, Sabres, T-33, and Mysteres and a total fighter experience of about 250 hours, I found myself posted to No- 9 SQN at Ambala in the end of year 1964. Flying officer Tubby Goel was in the exalted group of stalwarts like, R J M Upot [C O] and Johnny Greene, A J S Sandhu Black 1 as flt cdrs and Denzil, Chatto the Flt Lts to lead us. We had recently formed and No 23 Sqn was the oldest and well established along side under the command of test pilot Bhopinder Singh with Sikki as the leader of boys of both the units for good things of life.
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A frightening dive

Air Marshal PK (Babi) Dey

During the Gnat development programme at Folland’s airfield at Chilbolton, we were having trouble with accurate measurements of free air temperature in flight. So one fine morning I found a small probe on top of the canopy when programmed to carry out high Mach dives.

As the speed built up in a steep 60° dive from 45,000ft, and approached 0.9M, the aircraft suddenly went into a violent lateral oscillation. I could do nothing to control it and expected the fin to break off any moment. Instinctively, I had ‘closed throttle and was trying to ease out of the dive. I took my feet off the rudder pedals which were also moving viciously. As suddenly as they had started, the oscillations stopped, and I gently returned to base, very shaken and relieved that the aircraft was still in one piece.

Investigations proved that the tiny probe on top of the canopy was the villain, creating shock waves that hit the fin and started the oscillations as the aircraft speed went past 0.94M. It was a lesson I never forgot, and always thereafter I treated any projections that the ‘boffins’ wanted to stick onto an airframe with the greatest suspicion.

Development of the Gnat at Folland – Uninspired Guesses

By Gp Capt Kapil Bhargava (Retd)

At the outset I need to make it clear that I was never involved in any development testing of the Gnat. What follows is mostly hearsay as remembered by me over the years. This has been slightly refined with help from Air Marshals CS Naik and MSD Wollen. AVM PDA Albuquerque has also helped in some of its aspects. I, therefore, request that anyone who has authentic knowledge of the work done on the Gnat in UK, may please correct the events as I describe them in following paragraphs and add whatever I have missed. Corrections and additions should be distributed either as comments or in a new post.
Continue reading Development of the Gnat at Folland – Uninspired Guesses

A landing with tail split and stick fully forward!

By Augustine JohnSingh

After the exciting Indo-Pak War of 1971 in which 6 other course mates and I of 103 Pilots Course (7 Flying Officers with 2 years service – Ajit Agtey, RK Poonia, DR Patankar, SS Hothi, late AS Sidhu, RS Khangura, and myself AJ) in No. 2 Squadron under the Command of the legendary then Wing Commander Jonathan William Greene (God is Greene and Greene is God), flying the LITTLE FIGHTER in a mainly Air Defence Role took part from Rajasansi, Amritsar then No. 4 M.E.M.U. and kept the people of Amritsar safe from any damage whatsoever, the Winged Arrows were ready to relieve its sister squadron at Ambala, the Flying Bullets (No.18 Squadron) of its duties temporarily at Srinagar (Late Fg.Offr.Sekhon PVC’s Sqn) and make our presence felt in that area to prevent any misadventure by our neigbour.
Continue reading A landing with tail split and stick fully forward!

Ferry Kalaikunda – Sulur : Gnats land up in Kasturchand Park , Nagpur .

By Gp Capt PM Velankar

After the 1971 war the squadrons were recovering and as Squadron Adjutant I was busy in returning the “mobile furniture , the tentage and sorting out “DWO Inventory “. The EO and Flight Commanders were also busy sorting out their inventories . One major item being establishment and the strength of the aircraft on the inventory . Due to the war , aircraft were given permissible extension to enable the squadrons to keep flying them . Lot of aircraft were were given extension beyond the airframe life and so were over due for major overhaul . Early months of the year 1972 saw lot of Gnats being ferried to 5 BRD Sulur for major overhaul . In this the EO had an unenviable job . Which aircraft had to be ferried for major overhaul was no problem as it was straight forward and simple matter .What was not simple was the decision as to which major and minor components fitted on the aircraft were left with lot of ” life ” and would be needed in the squadron to maintain good serviceability as the spares were not easily forthcoming . Once that was decided the EO had to “cannibalise” these with those components which were left with just sufficient ” life ” to ferry from Kalaikunda to Sulur with a landing in Nagpur . Examples which come readily to mind are , Engine which was left with just 2 to 3 hours of life , Stand by R/T set which could not be repaired , Tail chute which could be deployed may be only once , main wheel tyres may be good enough only to do 2/3 landings etc . This was always done in consultation with the Flight Commander and decision was taken keeping in mind the seniority and experience of the ferry pilot who was thoroughly briefed about what was being done ! So in this way two aircraft had been made ready for the ferry . I do not know how things are in the Squadrons now a days , but these were considered totally acceptable practices and If today’s pilots & engineers consider that we were taking chances with flight safety , I would say that those were calculated risks . Life and Air Force in those days were different . You see those days Gnats still ruled the skies !!!
Continue reading Ferry Kalaikunda – Sulur : Gnats land up in Kasturchand Park , Nagpur .

THE GNAT AND I

By Air Marshal PK (Babi) Dey

I was introduced to the Folland Gnat in early March, 1958. I had graduated from the Empire Test Pilots’ School, then in Farnborough, a few months earlier. This was followed by a few weeks of production testing of Hunters being produced for the IAF at Hawker aircraft at Dunsfold. I was then posted to Folland Aircraft with whom the Government of India had signed a contract for purchase and production of the Gnat MkI at Hindustan Aircraft Ltd in Bangalore. The Gnat was still in the prototype testing phase, and so it was encouraging for me to become involved in this work so soon after graduating from ETPS.

I had seen the Gnat for the first time during the Farnborough Air Show in 1957 where the late Gp Capt Suranjan Das thrilled spectators from all over the world with his brilliant low level aerobatic display. While the company offices and factory were at Hamble in Southampton, the World War II airfield at Chilbolton in Hampshire was leased to Follands for their Gnat programme. At Chilbolton I was met and warmly welcomed by the Gnat testing and development team – EA (Ted) Tennant – the Chief Test Pilot, Suranjan Das, Mike Oliver and Dick Whittington. The late Sudhakaran had left recently and I was his replacement. John and Robbie manned the ATC, and Derby the emergency services. We also had with us two IAF technical officers – Peter Albuquerque and ‘Frenchie’ Puranik. It was a close knit family who merged together as only a small group can – the wives of the married ones joining in with an almost natural bonding. Dasu, and I and our tech officers felt ourselves very personally involved with the Gnat and its development and this was, I like to believe, a reflection of the quality and character of the aircraft itself!! All aircraft( like ships) belong to the feminine gender and the Gnat was one hell of a special and unique lady! It may sound strange giving an aircraft a human face – but the very fact that now, fifty years later, there is so much enthusiasm within India for remembering this the world’s first lightweight fighter, proves it’s very human side!

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Another Narrow Escape

By Shyam Hattangdi

There was never a dull moment in Gnats that I had an opportunity to fly, off
and on, from 1965 to 1982 and I had my share of incidents in ample measure.
One particular incident is worth mentioning.

It was a routine air test on a bright clear day and as I was climbing
through about 22,000 feet, I felt a slight “click” on the control column and
the aircraft began to gently roll to one side. This was easily controllable
and there was no indication of any other problem and the hydraulic pressure
and cycling were within normal limits. However since the problem involved
flight controls I decided to discontinue the air test and return, informing
ATC accordingly. Passing about 20,000 feet I decided that it would be wise
to get the wheels down as soon as possible as it could be an impending
hydraulic failure and, informing ATC of my intentions, reduced speed and
selected the undercarriage down.
Continue reading Another Narrow Escape