{"id":31934934,"date":"2026-11-09T11:26:58","date_gmt":"2026-11-09T10:26:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/hal-hf-24-marut-india-first-indigenous-jet-fighter-kurt-tank-1971\/"},"modified":"2026-11-09T11:27:22","modified_gmt":"2026-11-09T10:27:22","slug":"hal-hf-24-marut-india-first-indigenous-jet-fighter-kurt-tank-1971","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/de\/hal-hf-24-marut-india-first-indigenous-jet-fighter-kurt-tank-1971\/","title":{"rendered":"HAL HF-24 Marut: India&#8217;s First Jet Fighter, Designed by Kurt Tank"},"content":{"rendered":"<style>.et_pb_title_container h1.entry-title { padding-top: 40px !important; }<\/style>\r\n<!-- mfsh:top -->\r\n\r\n<style>\r\n.mfsh-trigger{display:inline-flex;align-items:center;gap:10px;height:44px;padding:0 18px;margin:0 0 26px;border:2px solid 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Three of them were senior design engineers, and two of those were already busy with a jet trainer. There was no proper prototype machine shop, no static test rigs and no flight test laboratory.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>His brief was to build India a Mach 2 fighter. What came out of Bangalore five years later was the <a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/aircraft\/hf-24-marut\/\">HAL HF-24 Marut<\/a>, the first jet fighter designed and built in India. It never went supersonic in any meaningful way, it was criticised for most of its life, and in December 1971 its pilots took it to war and brought it home again and again.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n<div style=\"background:#f4f6f9;border:1px solid #e2e7ee;padding:18px 22px;margin:22px 0 26px\"><p style=\"margin:0 0 8px;font-weight:700;color:#0d1117\">Quick Facts<\/p><ul style=\"margin:0;padding-left:18px\"><li style=\"margin:4px 0\"><strong>Aircraft:<\/strong> HAL HF-24 Marut (&ldquo;Spirit of the Tempest&rdquo;)<\/li><li style=\"margin:4px 0\"><strong>Designer:<\/strong> Kurt Tank, with Hindustan Aeronautics, Bangalore<\/li><li style=\"margin:4px 0\"><strong>First flight:<\/strong> 17 June 1961, Wing Commander Suranjan Das<\/li><li style=\"margin:4px 0\"><strong>Engines:<\/strong> Two non-afterburning Bristol Siddeley Orpheus 703 turbojets<\/li><li style=\"margin:4px 0\"><strong>Armament:<\/strong> Four 30 mm Aden cannons, 50 x 68 mm rockets, up to 4,000 lb on four hardpoints<\/li><li style=\"margin:4px 0\"><strong>Entered service:<\/strong> 1 April 1967, No. 10 Squadron IAF<\/li><li style=\"margin:4px 0\"><strong>Built:<\/strong> About 145 to 147, including two-seat trainers<\/li><li style=\"margin:4px 0\"><strong>Combat:<\/strong> 1971 Indo-Pakistani War, more than 300 sorties; none lost in air combat<\/li><li style=\"margin:4px 0\"><strong>Retired:<\/strong> Around 1990<\/li><\/ul><\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">A German designer in Bangalore<\/h2>\r\n\r\n<p>The project began in 1956, when Hindustan Aircraft took on three big jobs for the <a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/air-forces\/indian-air-force\/\">Indian Air Force<\/a> at once: licence production of the British <a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/aircraft\/folland-gnat\/\">Folland Gnat<\/a>, a new basic trainer that became the <a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/aircraft\/hal-hjt-16-kiran\/\">HJT-16 Kiran<\/a>, and the most ambitious of all, an indigenous supersonic fighter. Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru&rsquo;s government backed it as a way to build a modern aircraft industry.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>HAL lacked the experience, so it hired it. Tank had designed the Fw 190, the Fw 200 Condor and, after the war, the Pulqui II jet fighter in Argentina. He came to India with a German assistant and set about designing not just an aircraft, but the industrial base needed to build one.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\" style=\"margin:0 0 24px;width:100%\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"skip-lazy\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" loading=\"eager\" width=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2026\/11\/kurt-tank-portrait-1941-bundesarchiv.jpg\" alt=\"Black and white portrait of German aircraft designer Kurt Tank in 1941\" style=\"width:100%;height:auto;max-width:100%;display:block\"><figcaption style=\"font-size:13px;color:#777;text-align:center;margin-top:6px;font-style:italic\">Kurt Tank in 1941, when he was Focke-Wulf&rsquo;s chief designer. Fifteen years later he was in Bangalore designing India&rsquo;s first jet fighter. Photo: Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-L18396 \/ CC BY-SA 3.0 DE<\/figcaption><\/figure>\r\n\r\n\r\n<p>The airframe took shape quickly. A full-scale two-seat wooden glider, the HAL X-241, was towed into the air behind a Douglas Dakota in April 1959 to test the aerodynamics. On 17 June 1961, Wing Commander Suranjan Das took the first powered prototype aloft. The new fighter was named Marut, after the storm gods of the Rig Veda.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n<div style=\"position:relative;padding-bottom:56.25%;height:0;overflow:hidden;margin:24px 0 8px\"><iframe class=\"skip-lazy\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" loading=\"eager\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/t6_xMrtuxpw\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;border:0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"font-size:13px;color:#777;text-align:center;font-style:italic;margin:0 0 24px\">Military historian Ed Nash on the HAL HF-24 Marut and Kurt Tank&rsquo;s Indian fighter.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">The engine that never came<\/h2>\r\n\r\n<p>The Marut was designed around a pair of afterburning Bristol Orpheus BOr-12 engines. Then the British government withdrew its funding for that engine, India declined to pay for it alone, and the project died. HAL had to fit the Marut with the non-afterburning Orpheus 703, the same engine it was already building for the Gnat, with roughly 44 per cent less thrust.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>That single decision shaped everything that followed. The jet built to fly at Mach 2 could barely reach Mach 1. Over the 1960s India hunted for alternatives, testing a Marut with Egypt&rsquo;s Brandner E-300 engine and even trying Soviet engines, but nothing worked. Once India agreed in August 1962 to buy the <a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/aircraft\/mig-21-fishbed\/\">MiG-21<\/a>, the Marut&rsquo;s interceptor role was quietly dropped.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n<div style=\"background:#f8f9fa;border-left:4px solid #1565c0;padding:20px 22px;margin:18px 0 24px;font-size:16px;line-height:1.7\"><div><em>&ldquo;We were trying to create something incredibly difficult and expensive in a country where spending money was frowned upon. The gun versus butter argument was firmly settled in favour of butter.&rdquo;<\/em><div style=\"margin-top:10px;font-size:14px;color:#555\"><strong>Angad Singh<\/strong> &mdash; Observer Research Foundation, to the Hindustan Times, 2021<\/div><\/div><\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n<p>What remained was a twin-engined, single-seat strike fighter with four 30 mm Aden cannons, a retractable pack of 50 unguided 68 mm rockets and four underwing hardpoints. On 1 April 1967, No. 10 &ldquo;Dagger&rdquo; Squadron became the first unit to fly it.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">The pilots who loved her anyway<\/h2>\r\n\r\n<p>Many Indian Air Force officers were unimpressed. By the time the Marut entered service, the IAF already flew <a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/aircraft\/hawker-hunter\/\">Hawker Hunters<\/a> and Soviet <a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/aircraft\/su-7-fitter\/\">Su-7s<\/a>, and a fighter only marginally better than the Hunter was a hard sell. The men who actually flew it saw things differently. According to correspondent Pushpindar Chopra, they nicknamed it the &ldquo;Hunter Mk 2&rdquo; and praised its control response, aerobatic ability and steadiness as a gun platform.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\" style=\"margin:0 0 24px;width:100%\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"skip-lazy\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" loading=\"eager\" width=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2026\/11\/hal-hf-24-marut-flugwerft-schleissheim-munich.jpg\" alt=\"Natural metal HAL HF-24 Marut on display inside the Flugwerft Schleissheim museum hall near Munich\" style=\"width:100%;height:auto;max-width:100%;display:block\"><figcaption style=\"font-size:13px;color:#777;text-align:center;margin-top:6px;font-style:italic\">A Marut on display at the Deutsches Museum&rsquo;s Flugwerft Schleissheim near Munich, showing the slim, swept wing and fuselage-side intakes Tank designed around engines it never received. Photo: Softeis \/ CC BY 2.5, via Wikimedia Commons<\/figcaption><\/figure>\r\n\r\n\r\n<p>It had its quirks. At a 2011 reunion of Marut pilots in Bengaluru, Wing Commander M. W. Tilak recalled losing his canopy during armament firing, twice, and landing safely both times. From then on, he said, colleagues called his sorties the &ldquo;canopy firing exercise&rdquo;.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n<div style=\"background:#f8f9fa;border-left:4px solid #d32f2f;padding:20px 22px;margin:18px 0 24px;font-size:16px;line-height:1.7\"><div><em>&ldquo;The first time I saw her, I was stunned. She was beautiful, slim and sexy. When she moved, you couldn&rsquo;t spot her.&rdquo;<\/em><div style=\"margin-top:10px;font-size:14px;color:#555\"><strong>Wing Commander Brian DeMagry (retd)<\/strong> &mdash; Marut pilot, at the 2011 pilots&rsquo; reunion in Bengaluru (via the Hindustan Times)<\/div><\/div><\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">Into battle: December 1971<\/h2>\r\n\r\n<p>When war with Pakistan broke out in December 1971, two squadrons flew the Marut, No. 10 and No. 220. Forward-deployed at Uttarlai and Jodhpur, they flew more than 300 combat sorties in two weeks, attacking targets deep in southern Pakistan, including Hyderabad and the railways at Mirpur Khas and Rohri.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>On the morning of 5 December, as Pakistani tanks closed on the tiny Indian border post at Longewala, Hawker Hunters from Jaisalmer arrived at first light. Several accounts, including Wikipedia&rsquo;s, say Maruts flew alongside them in the attacks that broke the armoured column, which Afterburner covered in detail in its <a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/battle-of-longewala-1971-iaf-hunters-tanks-jaisalmer\/\">story of the Battle of Longewala<\/a>.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\" style=\"margin:0 0 24px;width:100%\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"skip-lazy\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" loading=\"eager\" width=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2026\/11\/hal-marut-longewala-memorial-rajasthan.jpg\" alt=\"HAL Marut fighter mounted on a stone plinth at Longewala in Rajasthan on a foggy morning\" style=\"width:100%;height:auto;max-width:100%;display:block\"><figcaption style=\"font-size:13px;color:#777;text-align:center;margin-top:6px;font-style:italic\">A Marut displayed on a plinth at Longewala, Rajasthan, where Indian Air Force fighter-bombers broke up a Pakistani armoured attack on 5 December 1971. Photo: Ayush 1988 \/ CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons<\/figcaption><\/figure>\r\n\r\n\r\n<p>Twin engines turned out to matter. On at least three occasions Maruts came home on one engine after the other was hit by ground fire, once from about 240 kilometres inside hostile territory. When hydraulics were shot out, the flight controls reverted automatically to manual, and pilots flew home that way. Three Marut pilots were awarded the Vir Chakra.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>Both sides agree that no Marut was lost in air combat. Indian records credit Squadron Leader K. K. Bakshi of No. 220 Squadron with shooting down a <a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/air-forces\/pakistan-air-force\/\">Pakistan Air Force<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/aircraft\/f-86-sabre\/\">F-86 Sabre<\/a> on 7 December 1971; Pakistani reports say that Sabre suffered an engine flameout. Losses to ground fire and strafing were small, a handful of aircraft by either side&rsquo;s count.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n<div style=\"position:relative;padding-bottom:56.25%;height:0;overflow:hidden;margin:24px 0 8px\"><iframe class=\"skip-lazy\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" loading=\"eager\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/IXo9koa9MbA\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;border:0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"font-size:13px;color:#777;text-align:center;font-style:italic;margin:0 0 24px\">Mark Felton on the Pulqui II, the jet fighter Kurt Tank designed in Argentina before he came to India.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">The end of the storm<\/h2>\r\n\r\n<p>HAL built only around 145 to 147 Maruts, depending on the source, including a small number of two-seat trainers, out of more than 200 planned. After India&rsquo;s 1974 nuclear test, even spares for the Orpheus became hard to get. Tank designed a true Mach 2 successor, the HF-73, but it died when an engine deal with Rolls-Royce fell through. By 1982 the IAF was proposing to retire the Marut, and the last were withdrawn around 1990.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n<div style=\"background:#f8f9fa;border-left:4px solid #1565c0;padding:20px 22px;margin:18px 0 24px;font-size:16px;line-height:1.7\"><div><em>&ldquo;I have done more than 150 hours on the aircraft, and I love it.&rdquo;<\/em><div style=\"margin-top:10px;font-size:14px;color:#555\"><strong>Air Marshal Brijesh Jayal (retd)<\/strong> &mdash; Former Marut test pilot, to the Hindustan Times, 2021<\/div><\/div><\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n<p>Critics called it a long-drawn-out failure, and on paper they had a point. But India learned to design a jet fighter on the Marut, the pilots who flew it into Pakistan came home, and when the country tried again decades later, the result was the <a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/aircraft\/hal-tejas\/\">HAL Tejas<\/a>. The storm spirit never broke the sound barrier. It did break the idea that India could not build its own fighter.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p><em>Sources: Wikipedia (HAL HF-24 Marut; Battle of Longewala), HistoryNet, Hindustan Times, Vintage Aviation News<\/em><\/p>\r\n<!-- mfsh:bottom -->\r\n\r\n<button type=\"button\" class=\"mfsh-trigger mfsh-bottom\" data-mfsh-placement=\"bottom\" aria-haspopup=\"dialog\"><svg><use href=\"#mfsh-i-share\"\/><\/svg>Share this story<\/button>\r\n\r\n<!-- \/mfsh:bottom -->\r\n\r\n\r\n<style>.mfq{margin:34px 0 8px}.mfq h2{font:26px\/1.3 \"Gilroy semiBold\",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;color:#0d1117;padding-top:22px;margin:0 0 6px}.mfq .qa details{border-top:1px solid #5C91FF;margin:0;padding:0}.mfq .qa details:last-of-type{border-bottom:1px solid #e2e7ee}.mfq .qa summary{cursor:pointer;list-style:none;display:flex;justify-content:space-between;align-items:center;gap:16px;padding:22px 26px;font:18px\/1.7 \"Gilroy semiBold\",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;color:#0d1117}.mfq .qa summary::-webkit-details-marker{display:none}.mfq .qa summary::after{content:\"+\";font:24px Helvetica,sans-serif;color:#3568e0;flex:0 0 auto}.mfq .qa details[open] summary::after{content:\"\\2013\"}.mfq .qa details:hover summary{color:#3568e0}.mfq .qa .a{font:16px\/1.7 \"Gilroy regular\",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;color:#454e5e;padding:0 26px 24px}.mfq .qa .a a{color:#3568e0}@media(max-width:680px){.mfq .qa summary{padding:18px 14px;font-size:17px}.mfq .qa .a{padding:0 14px 20px}}<\/style>\r\n\r\n\r\n<section class=\"mfq\"><h2>Frequently Asked Questions<\/h2><div class=\"qa\"><details open><summary>What was the HAL HF-24 Marut?<\/summary><div class=\"a\">The HAL HF-24 Marut was India&rsquo;s first indigenous jet fighter, built by Hindustan Aeronautics in Bangalore and designed under German engineer Kurt Tank. It first flew on 17 June 1961, entered Indian Air Force service in 1967 and served mainly as a twin-engined ground-attack fighter until around 1990.<\/div><\/details><details><summary>Who designed the HF-24 Marut?<\/summary><div class=\"a\">The HF-24 Marut was designed by Kurt Tank, the German engineer behind the Focke-Wulf Fw 190 and the Argentine Pulqui II, working with Hindustan Aeronautics. Tank arrived in Bangalore in August 1956 and found a design office of just 54 people, which he helped build into a fighter design team.<\/div><\/details><details><summary>Why was the HF-24 Marut never supersonic?<\/summary><div class=\"a\">The Marut was designed for afterburning Bristol Orpheus BOr-12 engines, but the British government withdrew funding and the engine was cancelled. HAL fitted non-afterburning Orpheus 703s with roughly 44 per cent less thrust, so the jet planned for Mach 2 could barely reach Mach 1. Efforts to find better engines failed.<\/div><\/details><details><summary>Did the HF-24 Marut fight in the 1971 war?<\/summary><div class=\"a\">Yes. Two Indian Air Force squadrons, No. 10 and No. 220, flew the Marut in the 1971 Indo-Pakistani War, flying more than 300 combat sorties in two weeks against targets in southern Pakistan. No Marut was lost in air combat, and three Marut pilots received the Vir Chakra.<\/div><\/details><details><summary>Did the HF-24 Marut take part in the Battle of Longewala?<\/summary><div class=\"a\">Several accounts, including Wikipedia, say HF-24 Maruts flew alongside Indian Air Force Hawker Hunters in the air attacks that broke the Pakistani armoured column at Longewala on 5 December 1971. A Marut is displayed on a plinth at Longewala today.<\/div><\/details><details><summary>How many HF-24 Maruts were built?<\/summary><div class=\"a\">Sources give slightly different totals: about 145 to 147 HF-24 Maruts were built, including a small number of two-seat trainers, out of more than 200 originally planned. The first squadron formed on 1 April 1967, and the last aircraft were retired around 1990.<\/div><\/details><details><summary>Can I fly in a MiG-21?<\/summary><div class=\"a\">Yes. MiGFlug offers <a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/mig-21-launch\/\">MiG-21 flights in Florida<\/a>, flying in the two-seat trainer version of the jet that replaced the Marut&rsquo;s planned interceptor role in India. The Florida MiG-21 flight is supersonic, so passengers can break the sound barrier.<\/div><\/details><\/div><\/section>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@type\":\"FAQPage\",\"mainEntity\":[{\"@type\":\"Question\",\"name\":\"What was the HAL HF-24 Marut?\",\"acceptedAnswer\":{\"@type\":\"Answer\",\"text\":\"The HAL HF-24 Marut was India\u2019s first indigenous jet fighter, built by Hindustan Aeronautics in Bangalore and designed under German engineer Kurt Tank. It first flew on 17 June 1961, entered Indian Air Force service in 1967 and served mainly as a twin-engined ground-attack fighter until around 1990.\"}},{\"@type\":\"Question\",\"name\":\"Who designed the HF-24 Marut?\",\"acceptedAnswer\":{\"@type\":\"Answer\",\"text\":\"The HF-24 Marut was designed by Kurt Tank, the German engineer behind the Focke-Wulf Fw 190 and the Argentine Pulqui II, working with Hindustan Aeronautics. Tank arrived in Bangalore in August 1956 and found a design office of just 54 people, which he helped build into a fighter design team.\"}},{\"@type\":\"Question\",\"name\":\"Why was the HF-24 Marut never supersonic?\",\"acceptedAnswer\":{\"@type\":\"Answer\",\"text\":\"The Marut was designed for afterburning Bristol Orpheus BOr-12 engines, but the British government withdrew funding and the engine was cancelled. HAL fitted non-afterburning Orpheus 703s with roughly 44 per cent less thrust, so the jet planned for Mach 2 could barely reach Mach 1. Efforts to find better engines failed.\"}},{\"@type\":\"Question\",\"name\":\"Did the HF-24 Marut fight in the 1971 war?\",\"acceptedAnswer\":{\"@type\":\"Answer\",\"text\":\"Yes. Two Indian Air Force squadrons, No. 10 and No. 220, flew the Marut in the 1971 Indo-Pakistani War, flying more than 300 combat sorties in two weeks against targets in southern Pakistan. No Marut was lost in air combat, and three Marut pilots received the Vir Chakra.\"}},{\"@type\":\"Question\",\"name\":\"Did the HF-24 Marut take part in the Battle of Longewala?\",\"acceptedAnswer\":{\"@type\":\"Answer\",\"text\":\"Several accounts, including Wikipedia, say HF-24 Maruts flew alongside Indian Air Force Hawker Hunters in the air attacks that broke the Pakistani armoured column at Longewala on 5 December 1971. A Marut is displayed on a plinth at Longewala today.\"}},{\"@type\":\"Question\",\"name\":\"How many HF-24 Maruts were built?\",\"acceptedAnswer\":{\"@type\":\"Answer\",\"text\":\"Sources give slightly different totals: about 145 to 147 HF-24 Maruts were built, including a small number of two-seat trainers, out of more than 200 originally planned. The first squadron formed on 1 April 1967, and the last aircraft were retired around 1990.\"}},{\"@type\":\"Question\",\"name\":\"Can I fly in a MiG-21?\",\"acceptedAnswer\":{\"@type\":\"Answer\",\"text\":\"Yes. MiGFlug offers MiG-21 flights in Florida, flying in the two-seat trainer version of the jet that replaced the Marut\u2019s planned interceptor role in India. The Florida MiG-21 flight is supersonic, so passengers can break the sound barrier.\"}}]}<\/script><div style=\"background:#f0f4ff;border-left:4px solid #5C91FF;padding:16px 20px;margin:32px 0 8px\"><p style=\"margin:0 0 8px;font-weight:600;color:#333\">Related Posts<\/p><p style=\"margin:4px 0\"><a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/battle-of-longewala-1971-iaf-hunters-tanks-jaisalmer\/\">Battle of Longewala 1971: Hawker Hunters Against a Tank Column<\/a><\/p><p style=\"margin:4px 0\"><a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/fma-pulqui-ii-kurt-tank-argentina-jet-fighter\/\">Pulqui II: Kurt Tank's Swept-Wing Jet for Argentina<\/a><\/p><p style=\"margin:4px 0\"><a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/helwan-ha-300-egypt-messerschmitt-supersonic-fighter\/\">The Pharaoh&rsquo;s Supersonic Fighter, Built by a Nazi Legend<\/a><\/p><p style=\"margin:4px 0\"><a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/folland-gnat-tiny-sabre-slayer\/\">Folland Gnat: The Tiny Sabre Slayer<\/a><\/p><\/div>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The HAL HF-24 Marut, designed under Focke-Wulf&#8217;s Kurt Tank and first flown on 17 June 1961, was India&#8217;s first indigenous jet fighter and flew hard in the 1971 war.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":31934838,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"editor_notices":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[666,664],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31934934","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-history-and-legends","category-military-aviation"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.8 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>HF-24 Marut: Kurt Tank&#039;s Fighter for India | MiGFlug<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The HF-24 Marut, designed by Kurt Tank and first flown on 17 June 1961, was India&#039;s first 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