Commemorating the shooting down of the Pakistani Air Force’s F-16 on the morning of February 27 during a dogfight in the aftermath of the Balakot air raids, the 51 Squadron of the Indian Air Force has come up with a new shoulder patch as a tribute to the heroic display of Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman.

These new shoulder patches named AMRAAM DODGERS and FALCON SLAYERS is, for sure, adding a sense of pride among the airmen of the No. 51 Squadron, also called Sword Arms, based at the Srinagar airbase. The squadron has a fleet of MiG-21s, one of which Abhinandan used to down the Pakistani F-16.

On the day of the post-Balakot dogfight, the Indian flying formations did an incredible manoeuvre, coupled with the presence of mind to turn off the radar system of the MiG-21s and thereby, effectively jamming the detecting capabilities of the F-16s of PAF which uses the radar signals of the enemy jets to detect them. These radar signals travel at the speed of light.

As the MiG-21s, operating on that morning did not emit any radar signal, the F-16s were given a fatal surprise as one of those was locked down to the missile target of the Indian Mig-21. The powerful radars of Su-30s and AWACS were used to send commanding signals to the MiG-21s that were made invisible to the enemy jets.