The heady roar of the legendary supersonic fighter jet that served the Indian Air Force (IAF) for 62 years is muffled by nostalgia-dripping voices, an emotionally redolent background score, and a mind seeking to absorb loads of information.
The "kick" inherent in the MiG-21 story is, however, given full rein in this engaging Netflix documentary conceived and executed as a companion piece to the hit web series Operation Safed Sagar.
"Kick" is the word that several retired and serving pilots interviewed on camera use in describing what they felt when they sat in the cockpit of the now-retired-from-active-service MiG-21 and revved up the engine for take-off. The documentary transmits much of that to the audience.
Many other fighter jets have been commissioned by the IAF over the years - variants of MiG, Mirage, and Su-30 but the legend of the incredible MiG-21s, despite the contested controversies surrounding its allegedly dodgy safety record in its twilight years, has not been eclipsed.
The success of Operation Safed Sagar, a military drama series about the IAF's 17 Squadron during the 1999 Kargil conflict, has catapulted the MiG-21s right back into the public consciousness, over which it has ruled untrammelled since the 1965 India-Pakistan War, rendering yeoman service in multiple roles - reconnaissance, defence and air strikes.
The Last Salute: A Love Letter to MiG-21, produced by Matchbox Shots and directed by Operation Safed Sagar co-creator Kushal Srivastava, taps into the collective memories that the web series rekindled.
Sharing their experiences and reminiscences, a slew of fighter pilots spell out exactly why the MiG-21s stood out when it mattered and what flying the jet took out of them as individuals and as trained pros.
Watching the documentary and hearing the men and women talk about the magnificent flying machine that they piloted over the decades and years, you cannot but feel the excitement the aircraft generated every time it took to the sky.
The 79-minute film, The Last Salute: A Love Letter to MiG-21 is set in 23 Squadron, the last IAF squadron that was flying the Mig-21s in an operational role, where it records the days leading up to the formal culmination ceremony organised on September 26, 2025, at the Chandigarh air station. It was at this very station that the Russian-made fighter jet was inducted into the Indian Air Force in 1963.
The emotional occasion, crowned with a final flypast, is attended by the military top brass and the Union Defence Minister. The film tempers an air of melancholy with the sense of pride that overwhelms the pilots fortunate enough to have notched up hundreds and thousands of flying hours on the MiG-21.
The Last Salute builds up slowly to this point of the aircraft's final chapter with the help of the reminiscences of pilots from across generations, including the Chief of the Air Staff, Air Chief Marshal Amar Preet Singh and the former CAS, Air Chief Marshal (retired) Birender Singh Dhanoa.
One pilot, still in the prime of his career, says he would be loath to bid goodbye to the MiG-21s, asserting that it still probably had many more years in it. Another explains why this fighter jet is demanding and unforgiving. You have to be at your 100 per cent, he asserts. The MiG-21 does not come down to your level; you have to go up to its level.
Every fighter pilot who flew the Mig-21, from Air Commodore S.S. Tyagi, who holds the world record for flying hours and number of sorties on the combat aircraft, to Squadron Leader Priya Sharma, commissioned in 2018.
Like the Netflix web series did, The Last Salute touches upon what the families of the pilots contribute to the countless sorties in times of military conflict. It is, as one seasoned fighter pilot says, not about the man behind the machine but about the family behind the man behind the machine.
The Last Salute also addresses the question of the mishaps that MiG-21s have suffered, with officers pointing a finger at the media for not bothering to do a comparative study of the safety records of other fighter jets. Car crashes are so common on our roads, says one, but do journalists clamour for action against the auto manufacturers for the unfortunate casualties?
Two of the pilots interviewed, including Air Chief Marshal Dhanoa, recall life-threatening emergency situations they encountered on a MiG-21 but bailed out of trouble thanks to their presence of mind. There is no room for mollycoddling in a MiG-21, somebody asserts, for once you are strapped up in the cockpit, the margin for error shrinks to nil.
But that is not the sobering note on which The Last Salute is designed to end. Just as well. It is a documentary about a fighter jet that has now flown into the sunset never to return to active action ever again. It is the legacy of a long, eventful, and memorable journey that the film celebrates.
The Last Salute does a fine job of capturing the ebbs and tides of the act of flying a machine that demands the world from a pilot - complete knowledge of its workings, an acute sense of its presence, and a full consciousness of its enormous power that it packs once it is airborne - and, just as importantly, of the human dimensions of the push that make a fighter jet soar in the sky and stay steady.
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Sharad Kelkar
