We always looked forward to the 23 March fly-past on the Pakistan day. It was a good change from the routine ’strafing’ , ‘rocket firing’ or ’air combat’. The boy’s instinct in us took it as a new interesting game.

It those days, the 23 March fly-past was conducted over the Race Course ground, Rawalpindi. It was an exercise requiring intricate planning, coordination and precise timing. Put simply, the mission was to get over a hundred aircraft, taking off from different bases, to join in a formation over a small bridge about 40 miles from Rawalpindi. From there, they had to set course in a sequence, in waves of 12 aircraft each, ensuring that the first wave was in front of the chief guest dais just as the last soldier of the march-past moved away from the Chief Guest dais.

The height over the stadium was to be no more than a few hundred feet and the speed was around 500 miles an hour. That year, we were flying 10 waves. Each wave was an inverted V with three Diamonds, one leading and two Diamonds on the sides. And each Diamond had one aircraft at its four corners. The separation between waves was 1500 feet, between the diamonds 200 feet and between aircraft only 10 feet.

I was the leader of the fly past’s Kilos, the Leader of three Mig Diamonds of Kilos, Limas and Mikes. The other waves comprised B-57 bombers, the French Mirages, the long-range F-16s, the chubby C-130s and the tiny T-37 trainers. The bombers, which carried maximum fuel, came from the farthest airfield. The fighter-bombers like the F-16s and Mirages flew from 400 miles away.

We, the thirsty Mig interceptors, always short on fuel, took off from only two hundred miles away. The three diamonds in my wave were the ’Kilos’, the ’Limas’ and the ’Mikes’. There had been fair weather around March 23 but on the day itself, it was hazy and cloudy with drizzle and rain along the route. The rain did not affect us but good visibility was essential to keep a safe distance from one another.

When we went to our aircraft, the long-endurance F-16s had already taken off and were on their way. The next to fly off were the Mirages. We, the Migs, were always the last to go and the first to return.

We started and lined up on the runway. With checks completed, I called out ’’Kilo Leader. Rolling Now’’ and released Brakes. And with that, the formation take off began. The aircraft behind me began to roll one by one with a gap of 10 seconds. After take-off, I reduced the throttles to 10,800 RPM and went into a shallow turn, making a wide arc, so that the others could cut in, catch up and join as I turned towards the heading for the RV point (rendezvous point), the X bridge.

We joined up and began the climb towards the bridge, 200 miles away. All different aircraft waves were to set up an ‘orbit’ over the bridge at different heights. From the ‘orbit’, each ‘wave’ was to slip into its position when the fly past leader ’set course’ for the Race Course ground. If the chief guest took more than the allocated time for his written speech, a complete additional orbit was to be made.

We flew over the Jhelum river and entered the Potohar plateau. The green fields gave way to a barren landscape but with the rugged beauty of the Salt Ranges. Small rivulets flowed through the gorges. There were few roads and scattered habitation.

Far away, on the horizon, I spotted some black dots moving through the morning mist. These were the ‘foxtrots’ , the Mirages heading towards the orbit point from a different airfield.

As we neared the bridge, the sky became a bit cloudier. Small wavy patches of clouds floated in the sky. Our flock slipped in and out of those clouds. Light drizzle began to beat against the cockpit reducing visibility. The fighter aircraft do not have windshield wipers like the transport planes. Nor do they have auto-pilots. The pilots have to fly it consciously every moment that he or she is in the cockpit.

We were accurately maintaining our altitude because in that poor visibility, there was not much room for maneuver. As we entered the orbit over the bridge. I could see the other aircraft, above and below; and it appeared like a disturbed beehive with bees hovering around.

We reduced our speed to endurance speed, the speed that consumes minimum fuel giving maximum flying time. I informed the fly-past leader that the "Fly past Kilos, Limas and Mikes were in position", and got into a lazy orbit waiting for the H-hour. I tuned into Radio Pakistan and heard Mr. Laeeq Ahmed, the standard anchorman for every nationalistic event, explaining the stadium layout to the audience. A hundred of us hovered around the bridge quietly, stacked up in layers, waiting - some lost in thought, some enjoying the view around.

The chief guest arrived and soon started the inspection of the parade. The march-past began and shouts of the march-past leaders could be heard on the radio. The fly-past leader announced the last orbit. As he completed the last orbit, his F-16 leveled its wings, dipped its nose and set course for the stadium. Then the first wave followed and its leader announced, "Alphas, setting course now". The sequence had begun for the final fly-past. Now everyone was fully awake. Every one started to take precise formation position from the relaxed position of waiting period.

When our turn came, I rolled out of the turn, got into a shallow dive, adjusted power and started to follow the Mirages ahead at a distance of 1500 feet. There were aircraft in front of us as far as the eye could see. Then Fly past leader announced ’’Crossing Nicholson Memorial Now’’. Col. Nicholson of the British Army was killed here and the event is engraved in the rock face in the shallow hills in the outskirts of Rawalpindi. Sher Shah Suri’s original grand trunk road also passes through these hills.

After a minute or so, we also reached these low hills on Rawalpindi’s outskirts. The city was now faintly visible through the mist and smoke of the winter morning. The stationary smoke indicated that there was no wind which meant that there wasn’t much possibility of ascending air currents or birds at the lower levels. However, it also meant that jet wash of the aircraft ahead of us would not drift away and we would encounter the air turbulent caused by the aircraft in front.

Now we had entered the city and were flying along the Mall. The stadium was approaching. The stadium looked neat and colorful with rows of soldiers, tanks, floats and a mass of humanity. I could see the white lines drawn for the parade.

I aligned myself with those lines. Our wave was now flying low over the houses outside the stadium. The Mirages had just entered the stadium. I could sense the entire stadium looking up in our direction. We steadied ourselves into flying in a tight, close formation.

And then suddenly, I saw three big vultures right in our flight path. I could do nothing. Anything I attempted would mess up the entire formation. Nor was there any time to take evasive action. I gave a call, "birds", and held my breath, continuing to fly straight ahead; fervently hoping that we would miss each other. Miss each other we did but only by inches. Whoosh, they flew past, skipping over our cockpits.

I heaved a sigh of relief as we entered the stadium. We were now only a few hundred feet above the ground and cutting through the air really fast. All eyes were glued to the sky. We were in the stadium for only a few fleeting moments; and then it was all over. The formation behind us had entered the stadium; and was being introduced by Mr. Laeeq. We flew for a minute more in a steady formation and then eased off towards our airfield.

We climbed to our cruising altitude and began flying at range speed to get maximum distance for minimum fuel. We crossed the Potohar plateau and were soon over the green fertile Punjab plains. I spotted the Mirage formation on my right and I informed the Formation leader that we were overtaking it from the Left.

The plan was to go overhead Sargodha and then carry out a fast ’Idle Power’ descent – the most fuel-economic way to descend. Overhead Sargodha, I called out ’’Kilos, Limas, Mikes. Snake Formation. Go’’. Snake Formation is a relaxed formation in which all aircraft position themselves at a distance of 1000 feet behind each other. From overhead the base, we did a circling visual descent, coming on the final approach and then landing one by one.

When I reached home, the show was still on with the Punjabi folk dance troupe beating drums and joyously swinging and twirling in front of the dais. For me, it was over until the same time next year. From the next day, it was back to business – strafing, rocket firing and air combat. But that is another story.