WhileIAF does not have a unique official service-wide mascot, its official crest features a Himalayan Eagle with outstretched wings, which symbolizes the force's fighting spirit. The official IAF crest features the State Emblem of the Ashoka Lions at the top, a spread-winged Himalayan eagle inside a light blue ring, and the motto “Nabha Sparsham Deeptam” or Touching the Sky with Glory.
For human beings, accustomed to living on land, travelling over water, or in the air, whether for the excitement provided by exploration and discovery of new lands, entertainment, or in search of livelihoods, has always remained an exciting prospect.
Flying, which became possible barely 200 years ago, is probably the most exhilarating experience. And I have had my share of such excitement through incidents which I recall, some with pleasure and happiness, and some with a sense of dread.
Soon after my post-graduation, one of the attempts I made while looking for a career was to respond to an advertisement in the newspapers calling for applications for the post of Station Managers in Air India. Along with a couple of hundreds of other aspirants, I sat for an examination conducted at what was then Madras. After a break, the organisation announced that nine of us had been selected for an interview to be conducted the next day, of all places, at the then Bombay! And then followed my first experience of travelling in an aircraft. Halfway through the flight, an announcement was made that, on account of a thunderstorm at the Santa Cruz Airport in Bombay, the aircraft may have to make an emergency landing in Karachi. First flight and first international travel, and that without a passport or visa, were the happy thoughts that flashed in my mind! Soon, however, the weather at Bombay improved, and we made a safe landing.
Another not so pleasant experience, in later years, was one of Usha, my wife, and I, returning from the then Calcutta, where I had gone for a training course at the Indian Institute of Management. All of a sudden, there was a spell of intense turbulence, and the aircraft began to swing, lurch and behave like a rollercoaster for several minutes. So scary was that experience that, for a couple of years after that, I dreaded the very thought of getting into an aircraft!
Not very different was the experience I had another time when, while I was escorting my mother to join our family at Delhi, the aeroplane managed to lose a wheel soon after taking off at Hyderabad and had to make a slow U-turn to return. It was the first flight experience for mother too, and despite my bravado, she sensed what was going on but managed to remain calm and composed.
Some events in the history of aviation in the world are worth recalling in this context. Firstly, the first controlled, sustained, and powered flight of a heavier-than-air aircraft in world history took place on December 17, 1903, near Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, USA, by American aviation pioneers Orville and Wilbur Wright. And Geraldine Mock, in 1964, created history when she became the first woman to fly solo around the world, in her Cessna 180 aircraft named ‘Spirit of Columbus’, completing the historic goal attempted by Amelia Earhart who, in 1928, had become the first female passenger to cross the Atlantic in an airplane.
Also, helicopter pilot Flight Lieutenant Gunjan Saxena, in 1999, achieved the distinction of becoming the first woman to fly in a combat zone during the Kargil War.
As darkness often offers an opportunity for the conduct of shady and dishonest practises by unreliable and untrustworthy persons or businesses, such operations are usually referred to as ‘fly- by – night’, also probably because an aircraft usually offers the quickest getaway from the scene of a crime.
Likewise, the expression "on a wing and a prayer," stands for doing something with very little preparation, poor resources, or a high chance of failure, relying purely on luck, hope or improvisation to pull through a tough situation.
A ‘redeye’ flight refers to a flight that departs at night and arrives the next morning, especially when the total flight time is insufficient for passengers to get a full night's sleep. the term deriving from red eyes as a symptom of fatigue. Such as, for instance, the flight from Los Angeles to New York City, which departs around 10:00 PM to 1:00 AM Pacific time and arrives around 6:00 AM to 9:00 AM Eastern time.
As the wife of an experienced flying officer who had risen to the highest position in the country’s Air Force, Sharda Mukherjee used to tell me that the most uncomfortable air journeys are those undertaken in the afternoon during the monsoon season on the east coast of the country. Precisely what Usha and I had done while returning from Calcutta!
Flights and incidents in aeroplanes have often been the subject matter for several gripping and interesting movies, both in Hollywood and the Hindi filmdom.
The 1956 vintage groundbreaking Canadian movie ‘Flight into Danger’ became a great success. The most well-known among search movies, however, is the film ‘airport’, 1975 based on the bestselling novel of the same name written by well-known novelist Arthur Hailey. But the film that will probably remain in the minds of moviegoers for a long, long time is ‘Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines’, a 1910-themed 1965 comedy epic: Reviewers frequently praise the movie for successfully recreating the look, humour, and gentle innocence of 1910 aviation culture and the Edwardian period through vibrant characterizations and physical comedy. There is this hilarious scene in that movie in which a German Sergeant and a soldier enter the race organised by the wealthy press baron Lord Rawnsley, from London to Paris, the very subject matter of the film. The pilot of the aircraft falls sick and the Sergeant, to the horror of the soldier, decides to fly the plane;and settles down in the Commander’s seat in the cockpit, opens the flying manual and reads out loudly, “sit down”, and sits down to begin the adventure!
(The writer was formerly
Chief Secretary, Government of Andhra Pradesh)