This tacky (and wasteful) mock-up of a Phalcon AWACS rolled past the crowds as part of the Republic Day parade this morning. The IAF usually has the best display — obviously, the fly-past — on any R-Day parade, but this time they did themselves in with this seriously distasteful aircraft model, only slightly better than one of those awful state tableaux. Also noticed that the MiG-29s were not part of this year’s fly-past. Hope the birds are doing ok.
IAF Phalcon catwalks on Rajpath!

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6 Comments
Bombay Walla
I agree it looks corny, would look ok in some secondary school program.
satishreaper
either were the Mirages nor the MiG 27s…the whole parade was cut short I think, The Madras regiment was not there, the ghorkha regiment was missing.
Anonymous
the MIG 29s visited Hindon for sure, on the pretext of participating in the republic day parade, probably some technical glinch or some last minitue adjustment to make the parade short. did anyone notice the change in the path of the aircraft this year, it was a bit far away.
Anonymous
making the pilots(in hawks flight suit?) stand on it was aweful, i still remember the day when in the 70’s when my father stood on the vehicle along with a real MiG- 21 in his high altitude G- suit. Saw the samething last year also….
Kannan,India
I think the armed forces used the occasion to mock politicians coz they were cold-shouldered by pay commission.
ha ha..I would have laughed to death if I were present there..:-)
I think military must not bring substantial part of battle field assets and personnel on Republic Day. A few gimmicks like a Su-30 flypast or a commando insertion will suffice..
Otherwise, Pakis or Chinis will take the occassion to strike on this day. And since most of the people in the “red button” authority like defence,external affairs and PM will be there..a pre-emptive ballistic missile strike on this venue is tempting..to say the least.
Bobs
to add to what ‘satishreaper’ has said:
while many important army regiments ,machinery and weaponry were missing from the march past, the MoD babus made sure that all the central paramilitary forces were paraded….a tragic fallout of the 6thPC …how can they become soooo cheap?????
GOD SAVE THIS BEAUTIFUL COUNTRY!