The State of Jammu and Kashmir is the northernmost state in India.  Till the 40s very little flying used to take place there, but with the invasion of this mountain kingdom in October 1947, and the airlifting of Indian Army troops into the capital of Srinagar, the state has developed many airfields to support the logistics of our troops stationed there.

Srinagar, Awantipur, Leh, Daulet Beg Oldi and Chushul are just a few of the airfields that the Indian Air Force uses in its daily supply routines. MiG-21 fighters were based in Srinagar, Awantipur and Leh for years now. Chushul airfield is the highest airfield at nearly 14,000 feet altitude. Leh is at 10,600 feet altitude and in the recent past had also operated MiG-23s and MiG-29s.

Jammu and Kashmir is more a land of dead aircraft than of preserved Warbirds. It is common knowledge that over the decades many transport aircraft of the IAF had crashed in the mountainous terrain and some have never been found at all. Read more about the missing aircraft and crashes at this link.

As of today, there are four known warbirds in Jammu and Kashmir, listed as follows:

Awantipur

Awantipur airfield is home to a full fledged Forward Base Support Unit. Regular operations are flown out of this airfield. There is one Sukhoi-7 and a Gnat used as gate guardians on the airfield.

Poonch

Poonch town is in the western part of the state right on the Line of Control that seperates Pakistan Occupied Kashmir. It was the scene of many battles in the 1947-48 war. At one stage when the road links were cut off, an airfield was built and the Indian Air Force used Dakotas and Harvards to fly supplies and reinforcements into Poonch. After the war, the airfield was used as an Advanced Landing ground for smaller aircraft like Austers, Harvards and the DHC3 Otters.

In 1965, a DHC3 Otter on a supply mission was damaged by Pakistani Shell fire and was damaged at the Landing ground. Over the years, the fuselage of the Otter was saved by the Army and patched up into "an aeroplane". In end 2004, the remains were shipped to Ambala where 41 R&SU restored it back to displayable status. The story and articles connected with the Otter can be read at this link in the News Section.

Leh

Leh is the major airport in the Ladakh area in the north-eastern part of the state. With an airfiled located at over 10000 feet altitude, it is in regular use by the Indian Air Force as well as the civilian Indian Airlines.  Over the years, many civil airlines have joined in the Leh circuit. The Indian Air Force had even based high performance jets like MiG-29s and Sukhoi-30s over the years.

Leh Air Force Station has a Hawker Hunter [BA-317] on display. Phil Hawks has written in detail about the Leh airfield on his page here. He noticed the Hunter first in 1987 , at which point of time it was in Camo scheme. In the mid nineties, when Phil visited the town again, the Hunter was now in a metal finish and moved to the center of the Air Force Station facilities, the serial number was now missing.

Hawker Hunter BA-317 on display outside the Leh Air Force Station. Photo Courtesy: Arun Sharma

That was not the last avatar of the Hunter. Arun Sharma has sent us a picture of the Hunter from 2003, the aircraft is now in the all too familiar Grey paint and is displayed on poles outside the airfield. The aircraft has a metal plate bolted over where its gunpack and shell collectors ("Sabrinas") would have been.

The Hawker Hunter was most probably an ex-No.20 Squadron aircraft, which operated from Leh in the late eighties/early nineties.  

One aircraft relic in Leh falls just outside the perimeter. It is the tail fin of An-12 that crashed on approach in 1977, killing over 70 of its occupants. The fin was preserved insitu in a makeshift memorial to those who lost thier lives in the accident.