A pilot's sense of bravado

I always considered myself barely an above average professional pilot. However, as I approached the end of my naval aviation career, my own self-esteem took a vault upwards.

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The delusions of super performance start as one approaches retirement. The braided Navy peaked cap balanced on ramrod neck, like the crown of a rooster, I thought no one after me could do what I had achieved. Although my teenaged daughter would often taunt, ‘Dad, you have only landed helicopters on the rolling decks of ships and behave as if you have launched satellites into space.’

Bitten with commercial aviation bug, I went to Kochi for a few hours of refresher flying in 2008 prior to hanging up my uniform. The visit was after nearly 15 years and along with the spellings of Cochin, everything had changed. As part of pre-flying formalities, I decided to go to the safety equipment section of the Naval Air Station to update the safety drills, which is a pre-requisite for flying after a break. Approaching the building, I got down from the car and decided to walk. Suddenly, a Chief Petty Officer came rushing with the smartest salute ever seen in the service and loudest greetings. A look at the name tab showed some Nair which was hardly helpful.

He said: ‘Sir, every member of my family remembers you a lot… even my in-laws know about you.’ Still not the faintest sign of recognition and a blank face, he finally came to my rescue with the explanation: ‘Sir, I was an apprentice in Sea King squadron when you were the senior pilot. One Sunday afternoon, you were waiting to carry out maintenance test flight on an old Sea King helicopter undergoing rectification. You then casually remarked that as long as the fans of the helicopter are rotating, you would anyway do the flight. You then went ahead and flew it. I have been telling my relatives what brave pilots we have in the Indian Navy.’

Chief Nair was right and I did remember many such times waiting for ground run or test flight while rectification work was being undertaken on old helicopters used for training purposes.

My ego and pride lay punctured like a pricked balloon. My inner self was yelling at me… so this was your professionalism and the legacy that you leave behind in this great service. Flying is a serious business requiring high standards of knowledge and maturity. Pilots of yore, those ‘kick the tyre and light the fire’ types with a casual approach have no place in modern, complex flying machines.

With hindsight now, I think the sailor was a young impressionable boy who merely looked at the outward show of my false bravado. He had no clue of the tough theory training regimen of a pilot which makes an incisive mind chisel at every bit of a situation. Like they say, a good pilot is like a duck, calm on the surface but pedalling like hell under it.