HF-24 Marut

 This is my pencil sketch of a legendary jet fighter of Indian Air Force that fought valiantly in 1971 Indo-Pakistan war. By far the most elegant military aircraft to take to Indian skies, this indigenously built fighter bomber by Hindustan Aeronautics named HF-24Marut (in Sanskrit “Spirit of Tempest”) first flew on 17 June 1961. Designed by the well-known German aircraft designer Kurt Tank and Indian engineers from Hindustan Aircraft Limited at Bangalore, a total of 147 aircraft were built, including 18 two-seat trainers. Although originally conceived to operate in the vicinity of Mach 2, the aircraft in fact turned out to be barely capable of reaching Mach 1 due to the lack of suitably powered engines for the airframe.  However, with twin engine benefits and good flying control characteristics this aircraft proved to be a very robust platform in 1971 Indo-Pakistan war where it was used for attacking ground based enemy targets. Armed with 4x30 mm ADEN cannons with 120 rds per gun, Retractable Matra pack of 50× 2.68 in (68 mm) rockets and upto 4000 lbs on four pylons, this aircraft carried a fair punch in its ground attack role. It has even an air-to-air kill to its credit. Marut flown by Sqn Ldr KK Bakshi of 220 Squadron shot down a PAF F-86 Sabre on 7 Dec 71. PAF pilot shot down was Flying Offr Hamid Khwaja. Another creditable war record of this fleet of aircraft  is that no Marut was lost in air-to-air combat, although four were lost to ground fire and two were destroyed on the ground. Three Marut pilots were awarded the Vir Chakra commendation.

The Marut had good survivability record too in enemy airspace. On number of occasions, Maruts    regained their base after one engine had been lost to ground fire. On one of these, a Marut returned to base on one engine, from about 150 miles (240 km) inside hostile territory.  Consequently, the pilot had no difficulty in flying his crippled fighter back to base.  

All Maruts were retired from IAF service in 1990

.. (Information courtesy Wikipedia)