New Delhi. Air power is about reach, deployed successfully in World Wars I and II, and then about technology, increasingly developed and used from then onwards. It was a game of numbers, bravery and skill at dogfights, which the pioneer pilots of the Indian Air Force (IAF) played like their counterparts elsewhere, and distinguished themselves.

The Indian Air Force has just turned 75, and although much has been written about its history, it is still appropriate to mention – in Golden Words, or shall we say Platinum – the glorious years of its growth and maturing to the potent force it is today.

But beyond 75, it has to be a force with a vision of cutting edge technology for tomorrow and day after. History is the foundation of any institution. The history of the Indian Air Force has been magnificent.

Its magnificent men in their flying machines – to borrow the words from a 1965 film that I saw during my early college days – played their role and fought well whenever the country called upon them. In both the 1965 and 1971 wars, IAF pilots fought an enemy equipped with better machines and weapons, and proved that the man behind the machine is an equally potent force.

In 1965, the skies were guarded well. We heard radio Pakistan claiming that the Pakistani air force had destroyed a wireless station in Gurgaon, then a town of few thousand people where I grew up. Not even an empty shell or a drop tank had fallen from the skies.

In 1971, the Indian Air Force dominated the skies in the then East Pakistan, paving way for the Army to take charge and help the liberation fighters, leading to the creation of an independent state of Bangladesh.

In the northern sector, me and a friend of mine – R I Singh, who is now the Chief Secretary of Punjab – decided to have ‘a look at the war from rather close quarters.’ Of course we could go nowhere near the battlefront so we went around various airbases to see the dogfights. There was some bombing at Ambala one day, and on another occasion, Pakistani jets attacked a group of villagers sitting around fire while making illicit liquor near Adampur.

That was the closest the PAF had been to that airbase.

I cannot say we were disappointed.

In fact, the day Mrs Indira Gandhi, the then Prime Minister, addressed the nation from the Ram Lila Grounds in Delhi during the war, a couple of IAF jets displayed manoeuvers that could literally be described as aerobatics. Whatever their purpose, everybody down below had his head up, in pride and with the knowledge that we are secure, thanks to the brave boys up in the air, on the ground fighting the invaders, and on the seas guarding the coasts.

I may point out that those days, at least in North India, the armed forces were the first choice for a career. I myself wanted to be a fighter pilot but had spectacles by the time I was 13; the choice then was to flirt with words and not the sky and I chose writing as a career rather early in my life.

Given a chance, I would still join the Indian Air Force – Is Somebody Listening?

Alas, the times have changed. Assuming somebody is given the chance, will he be able to absorb the technology, that rapidly changes every few months? The answer is an emphatic NO.

In World War I, adversary pilots waved to each other while on bombing missions, and in World War II, particular pilots marked each other for dogfights to prove who was the better one among them. Dogfights were fought at close quarters and pilots would visually recognize one another’s faces, and names if written on their propeller aircraft.

In the 1965 war, Indian pilots saw Pakistanis flying jets with Iranian markings, apparently a gift lease to them from the then Shah of Iran.

The days of visual contacts are over. Beyond the Visual Range (BVR) missiles are already standard, and with new communication and attack technologies, the younger – much younger – generation will always be ahead.

At a 2003 briefing by Boeing on Future Wars that I attended in Abu Dhabi – it was a rather fat boy in early twenties who linked satellites, ships, helicopters and tanks from his control panel. Of course, his demonstration panel was on the ground.

In flight, there has to be a smart, alert pilot, ready to absorb information from multiple sources as well as his own observations, and be ready and able to process that information for decisive action in split seconds.

That calls for highly intelligent computer-literate pilots from their early days, preferably from earlier teens or before, and provision of aircraft, systems and weapons that enable acquisition and engagement of target from far and farther to neutralise a threat.

That’s what a future war is about. Bridging the time gap between acquisition of a target, and its engagement and destruction is the key to modern warfare, particularly with the increasing use of communication at the speed of light and technologies like the AESA (Active Electronically Scanned Array) radars.

The importance of newer technologies is well understood in the Indian Air Force and the three IAF Chiefs I have interacted with in the recent years, Air Chiefs Marshal S Krishnaswamy, S P Tyagi and F H Major, have all said clearly that besides the multi-role capability of flying platforms, “it is what’s inside them that matters most.”

Air Chief Marshal S P Tyagi in fact told this writer that he was not much interested in the aerobatic capability of an aircraft. “I do not want dogfights; I want to hit an enemy where he is, maybe hundreds of miles away.”

Top US sources say that at one time, US surveillance had President Saddam Hussain in its sight but could not muster timely delivery of weapons to attack him. If that had been achieved, if the time between information and engagement had been bridged, perhaps the history of Iraq would have been different.

Aircraft are for the delivery of kinetic force far from shores. Newer gadgets, connectivity, and better missiles are about delivering that punch farther, and in split seconds. Without loss of time.

IAF has a proud history of 75 years. In future, it has to be an ultramodern force with futuristic aircraft, UAVs and UCAVs, sensors, satellites, connectivity and weapons.

Beyond 75, the three key words for the Indian Air Force should be: Acquire, Fire, Delete.

Or maybe, just two: Acquire. Delete.