Night of the dead Drone

[Windjammer]

Have received this historical image of PAF pilots returning after making aviation history by being the first to shoot down a drone in air.

On June 07, 2002, a Pakistan Air Force F-16 Falcon flown by Sqn Ldr Zulfiqar shot down an Indian Searcher-II UAV (of israeli origin) with an AIM-9L sidewinder missile at an altitude of 13000 ft ---over the Dogran Kalan village, just southwest of Lahore Punjab. The incident was later confirmed by Indian Defence Ministry.

 

[Windjammer]

Wing Cdr(then Sqn Ldr) ‘Sidewinder’ Zulfiqar; the pilot who shot down IAF UAV on that Night.

 

[khail007]

I am proud, that hero was student of my elder brother in Risalpur and was also one of neighbours of my parents in Islamabad in late 80's.

 

[Trango Towers]

Have received this historical image of PAF pilots returning after making aviation history by being the first to shoot down a drone in air.

On June 07, 2002, a Pakistan Air Force F-16 Falcon flown by Sqn Ldr Zulfiqar shot down an Indian Searcher-II UAV (of israeli origin) with an AIM-9L sidewinder missile at an altitude of 13000 ft ---over the Dogran Kalan village, just southwest of Lahore Punjab. The incident was later confirmed by Indian Defence Ministry.

View attachment 445970

Should have used his guns. Saved the sidewinder. Still it's a kill. Well done that man. Who said you can't shoot down drones

 

[Windjammer]

Should have used his guns. Saved the sidewinder. Still it's a kill. Well done that man. Who said you can't shoot down drones

The incident took place close to midnight, visual acquisition may not have been good, missile tone would assure a definite kill.

 

[CombatSurgeon]

Should have used his guns. Saved the sidewinder. Still it's a kill. Well done that man. Who said you can't shoot down drones

Hahaha! We should be grateful that somehow our guys bagged him. It was proximity detonation, not a DH. On a number of occasions there were failed intercepts after chaotic scrambles.
On one such day in Jan 2002 during escalation, a drone was reported over Sukkur. By the time Mirages were hot-launched from Shahbaz, some of us guys had visually spotted the sucker over Sukkur air base in broad daylight! To our dismay, triple-A was not released and F-6s were held back on tarmac. Mirage boys were on the scene in no time but to no avail. Despite establishing multiple intermittent locks-on with their onboard Grifo-Ms, they did not have the slow-speed performance to get into the weeds and dance with the cool bastard. It maneuvered like crazy and had a small-RCS. Mirage fellas couldn't get close enough for an IR lock and the Searcher got away clean. That's the real issue with drone hunting.

 

[Imran Khan]

those were the days now they come hit osama and go back air force stoo pi ker so rahi thi

 

[Trango Towers]

Hahaha! We should be grateful that somehow our guys bagged him. It was proximity detonation, not a DH. On a number of occasions there were failed intercepts after chaotic scrambles.
On one such day in Jan 2002 during escalation, a drone was reported over Sukkur. By the time Mirages were hot-launched from Shahbaz, some of us guys had visually spotted the sucker over Sukkur air base in broad daylight! To our dismay, triple-A was not released and F-6s were held back on tarmac. Mirage boys were on the scene in no time but to no avail. Despite establishing multiple intermittent locks-on with their onboard Grifo-Ms, they did not have the slow-speed performance to get into the weeds and dance with the cool bastard. It maneuvered like crazy and had a small-RCS. Mirage fellas couldn't get close enough for an IR lock and the Searcher got away clean. That's the real issue with drone hunting.

What crap.....especially the fact that it's over airfield and anti aircraft batteries were not allowed to open up. And then multiple locks and no fire. Erratic movement of the drone.....was the operator at sukkar. What are You smoking? Then You talk of f6.....did you mean f6

 

[CombatSurgeon]

What crap.....especially the fact that it's over airfield and anti aircraft batteries were not allowed to open up. And then multiple locks and no fire. Erratic movement of the drone.....was the operator at sukkar. What are You smoking? Then You talk of f6.....did you mean f6

Calm down, gent. No need to be so full of yourself. It's the way things happened.
AAA was not allowed either because we were not at war with India or the alert level was probably medium or own traffic was inbound i.e Mirages.
Multiple locks-on occurred with radars, yes, but DLZs, angles, aspect ratios etc were too imperfect for a Heater shot. You must remember that we'd only Foxtrot-2 shooters available back in 2002, though I doubt Slammers would have fared any better in a similar scenario.
What tells you Indians did not know their bird was over a hostile airfield?. FYI, all UAV flights were under GPS/INS nav control, their operators fully tied in with the overall air defense system that was keeping an eye over Sukkur with radars and SIGINT. They watched what we did in the sky as Sukkur is not far from border! (We also watch and our own drone incursions do happen as well, by the way. See, no prob here. It's a game of chicken, though a deadly one.)
Yes, F-6s at that time at Sukkur, poor old F-6s, my dear.
Whatever happened, it happened. Point here is that Anti-drone battle is a tricky one. Kudos to S/L Zulfi and his backseater S/L Afzal 'Wada.'

 

[Raider 21]

The incident took place close to midnight, visual acquisition may not have been good, missile tone would assure a definite kill.

Not to mention the speed for maneuvering behind a very slow aircraft.

 

[somebozo]

Hahaha! We should be grateful that somehow our guys bagged him. It was proximity detonation, not a DH. On a number of occasions there were failed intercepts after chaotic scrambles.
On one such day in Jan 2002 during escalation, a drone was reported over Sukkur. By the time Mirages were hot-launched from Shahbaz, some of us guys had visually spotted the sucker over Sukkur air base in broad daylight! To our dismay, triple-A was not released and F-6s were held back on tarmac. Mirage boys were on the scene in no time but to no avail. Despite establishing multiple intermittent locks-on with their onboard Grifo-Ms, they did not have the slow-speed performance to get into the weeds and dance with the cool bastard. It maneuvered like crazy and had a small-RCS. Mirage fellas couldn't get close enough for an IR lock and the Searcher got away clean. That's the real issue with drone hunting.

Aviation technology progressed so fast that the tracking and monitoring technology completely dropped the spectrum for slow speed capability. The threat perception has always been fast moving mach 2.0 capable aircraft or hyper-sonic cruise missiles..

Since drones do not fly at high distance, it is not difficult to build autonomous ground systems for tracking and shoot down of drones with long range AA guns..

 

[GriffinsRule]

An aircraft in the Embraer Super Tucano class would be perfect for intercepting such slow moving targets