KANG'S BULLET
I was
in Tezpur from January 1973 to end March 74. A free for all station;
anything went. The monthly task was 320 hrs on the T-77 and 60 on the trainer. We
had to finish flying by the 20th of the month, so that the station
could stand down for 10 full days. With three Sqns of Migs it was a mad rush to
get airborne and fly your four details by 1300 hrs. All this with nary an
accident. The local menace was CO 4 Sqn, who would taxy out
on his own, joining up with any
formation carrying out tyre checks ,etc, especially a 4 aircraft formation. He would make them
run rings with his peccadilloes. 4 Sqn was very good in Chess, as he was very
fond of the game. Bad weather? Chess board out. This overly laissez faire
approach told in the end when 4 Sqn had a spate of 5 accidents, all fortunately
ending in safe ejections. Their Flt Cdr and a very senior pilot got lost in very
heavy clouding, from 300 feet up to 20,000, as the navigational aids on their
aircraft failed. They ejected near Silchar, 325 km away. He himself ejected
when burning up fuel in Afterburner after experiencing engine problems (oil
pressure failure) warranting immediate landing. He was removed from Command but
was reinstated as all his men went into a Hartal. Ironically, he rose to become
Inspector General, in charge of Flight Safety !
One
offr from 30 Sqn, a Flt Lt TS Kang had just purchased a gleaming red Bullet
motorcycle and brought it himself from
MaDras, now Chennai. His stories of travel on a goods train were both amusing
and terrifying. He loved his bike so much that he would tune it twice a day,
keeping many of them awake till midnight
. The icons of old, viz, Irfan Haidari, PPK Naidu, S
Bhalla, Yezdi Irani and their ilk, warned him to desist. But, love
is indeed a many splendoured thing and Kang decided to take them on. One
midnight, the gang got together and silently lifted the Bike to the base of a
massive Peepal tree and hoisted it 50 odd feet up, invisible to the ignorant.
Kang was put through a grilling time, with Police dogs thrown in, 3rd
degree questioning of the orderlies, et al. There was a slightly dodgy moment
when one dog headed for the tree; but only to lift his left hind leg. Good
training, what? One week later, the bike was as silently restored, to the
paeans of unbridled ecstasy of a chastened owner. Tragically, Kang was killed
in a road accident on the same bike in Pune. May he rest in peace.
The IAC dispersal was opposite the ATC. The
hostesses then were very pretty and this led Yezdi Irani, the Operations
Adjutant [Flying] to phone in a bomb threat. The intention was to get to know
the Hostesses better. Yezdi rushed out to the F-27 as the passengers were now
back in their waiting room. Alas, the Stn CDr reached first and ordered him to
look after the Pilots! Guess who looked after the Air Hostesses?
CTO was a Wg CDr Mukhodadhya, who spent his
spare time rearing chicken, not for eating though. He once went on two weeks
leave, handing over care of the birds to his neighbour, a Flt Lt MS Dalhi. A
farewell was in the offing and 4 Sqn was tasked with the Food. As their policy was ‘Drink before eat’, they
forgot to set up the Menu. Chicken was a rare delicacy and when Denzil Uncle
realised what had happened, he organised a quiet nocturnal abduction, intending
to replace the previous night’s fowl with imported ones. The CTO was livid with
rage on return and this was the probable cause of his raising the undercarriage
on a MiG-21 during a ground run!
Incidentally, he is the only
Officer of any branch to have ever repeated this feat.
Accidents do happen and that era was no
different except that were no limitations, no irrelevant stuff . His course-mate,
Plt Offr Tanwar ejected at 1030 hrs. He was recovered by 1230 hrs and sent up
to fly a repeat sortie at 1600 hrs. He then debriefed all of us on his
misadventure. His primary lesson was “I will never fly again without my
cigarettes.” At all of 5’2”, he thought that getting out of the 8’ Elephant
grass was far more terrifying than the ejection. He flew 17 sorties before Air
HQ stopped his flying altogether. He moved over to Jorhat, to fly Tpt ac.
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