I was watching this documentary on lockheed, and they were talking about F-16s, and they mentioned that after the Israelis, the Pakistanis used the aircraft for military purposes, and their pilots demonstrated unusual flying skills which brought out the true potential of this fighter jets and destroyed alot of Afghan and Soviet aircrafts during the 80s. They also said that even the designers at Lockheed were perplexed as to how well the PAF pilots paired with that fighter jet series.
Anyone got more information on this? Its pretty interesting as they said that these pilots did not have the best flight trainers and simulators, but still championed the dogfights with unmatched skills.
p.s. i have seen the tails of certain soviet jets at some places in Pakistan put up as a decoration, that PAF pilots are credited to have destroyed…
Indeed the Pakistani fighter pilots on the F-16s have been some exemplary fighter fliers. I think during the soviet-afghan war about 6 or so planes were downed by PAF F-16s. Some of them were transporters as well, but all others were SU-22 fighters and SU-25 bombers or Mig 23s.
Two of the tails decorated as trophies along with citations and pictures of the F-16 pilots who tookpart in these kills are shown here;
Two of these officers AC Qadri and AVM Razzak later died in crashes. AVM Razzak with ACM Mushaf Ali Mir and AC Qadri on his farewell flight on the last day as base commander Kamra as his F-7 crashed due to sometechnical fault and he couldnt even eject. He had been cleared by the promotions board to the next rank of AVM. Both were among the best of the best.