‘Grateful’ Mumbai pilot names aircraft after PM

Shiv Kumar

Tribune News Service

Mumbai, November 21

The Maharashtra government will soon allot a plot of land to a Mumbai-based pilot who built a six-seater aircraft on the terrace of his house, but was allowed to test-fly it only after the intervention of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Captain Amol Yadav, deputy chief pilot of Jet Airways, built the prototype of his aircraft on the terrace of his building in suburban Kandivli at a cost of nearly Rs 4 crore. 

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However, with the Directorate General of Civil Aviation refusing to give him clearance for a test flight, Yadav, who had exhibited his creation at air-shows and the ‘Make in India’ show at Mumbai, threatened to set it on fire if the permission did not come from the government.

Following the intervention of Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, the DGCA has gone ahead and given Capt Yadav the certificate. On Monday, Yadav was formally handed over the certificate by Fadnavis.

Yadav told reporters here that the prototype aircraft had been christened VT-NMD after Narendra Modi and Devendra Fadnavis. “It took me six years to design and build this aircraft,” Yadav told reporters here.

The aircraft is presently parked at an airstrip in Dhule and Yadav is to begin his test flights soon. 

According to him, the aircraft can go as high as 13,000 feet and fly within a range of 2,000 km at a top speed of 185 knots.