SINDHIS TO THE FORE

The Avaricious Sindhi

I may be the only bloke from the IAF to induct two types of aircraft. It often requires you to go abroad and fly the purchased aircraft back to India. I would like to add a story about petty selfishness here. It concerns a Sindhi and an equally greedy Punjabi businessman.

My team leader in France for the induction of the French company, AMBDA or Marcel Dassault’s latest production, the Mirage-2000, was a Wing Commander and the second in command a senior Squadron Leader, due for promotion within a month of returning to India. We were to ferry quite a few aircraft to India. After the first ferry, the two honchos submitted a Ferry Report and added a paragraph  in fine print that all ferries were to be led only by Wing Commanders (Wg Cdr), i.e., themselves. Moreover, the Wg Cdr not ferrying the aircraft was to go as the leader of the advance party−four weeks in advance−in order to sign the taking over documentation and return with the Ferry team in the supporting Transport aircraft, an IL-76. Thus both these selfish chaps were overseas, one way or another. This clause was deleted after the last ferry. Greed has no bounds and you will see that regularly.

This same Wing Commander was selected as the Air Attache to Ukraine while another Wing Commander was selected for Sweden. Using his beguiling charm, this scheming Wing Commander managed to persuade his erstwhile Directing Staff at the Defence Services Staff College, Wellington, Ootacamund to change over the two names so that he could go to Sweden while the deserving Wg Cdr was shunted off to Ukraine.