Warbird Discoveries of the Year 2004
The IAF Kanpur I and Kanpur II

The Kanpur 1 (Left) at Chandigarh and the Kanpur II (Right) at IIT Kanpur.

The Warbird Discovery of the Year 2004 label, for the first time, is given to two aircraft instead of one. The aircraft though two in number, have the same lineage and almost similar history. They are the IAF Kanpur 1 at Chandigarh and the IAF Kanpur II with IIT Kanpur.

Both aircraft have been designed by late Air Vice Marshal Arjan Singh - and both carried an IAF serial number.

In effect, these are not discoveries per se, but 'rediscoveries'. There was no danger of these airframes going into extinction as the earlier airframes were. These had been in safe hands all along.

The credit for first reporting the Kanpur II goes to Aditya Gupta who speculated seeing it. This was confirmed by Rishi Tandon and on his behest, Ashish Nigam sent us the photographs. Rishi gets a second credit for reporting the Kanpur I at PEC Chandigarh and its subseuent photograph.

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