|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
An Angel in the
Cockpit
The Chairman Emeritus, Raymond group, became the first man to fly a hot air balloon to a height of 69,000 feet above sea level recently. He broke the Guinness World record by Per Lindstrand, who reached an altitude of 65,000 feet in May 1988 in Maine, USA.Vijaypat Singhania’s An Angel in the Cockpit is a true account of his death-defying flight across 5,000 miles from England to India in 1988. Beating Brian Milton, a British pilot’s earlier record, Singhania earned himself a place in the Guinness Book of World Records. The book lends insight into his childhood, family life and how watching in awe "a small guy behind the cockpit window lifting this huge piece of metal off the ground." The seeds of the desire to fly were sown then. It was partly the inability to resist the temptation of owning and flying a microlight in the wake of Indian Government’s ban on import of aircrafts that led Vijaypat to plan to fly it into India, making the flight "sensational", "daring", "a big enough drama around flying into it…that they have no choice but to let us keep it here" (31) and partly the desire to commemorate 40 years of India’s Independence by beating an Englishman’s aviation record, turning a Nelson’s eye to the risky venture. The details of his aerial journey in a tiny 532cc two-stroke Rotex, single-ignition engine microlight aircraft, which started on August 18, 1988, from Biggin Hill in England, culminated successfully in 22 days at Ahmedabad on September 8, 1988, are gripping. The volume bears in detail the account of each day in a separate chapter.
That he is a man of word is clear from the risking of his life—daring to get airborne against the advice of the others and fly midst wall to wall clouds on the Italian Alps in zero visibility, encountering severe turbulence and in a condition where he could not even see his aircraft’s wings— only to keep his promise of dining with a friend. The credit of avoiding a fatal accident at the Albenga airfield while landing, when the bodies of the skydivers started tumbling all of a sudden, goes to the skillful manoeuvres and the pilot’s presence of mind. The other incident of landing in Egypt while only 1-minute fuel was left is chilling. The decision to fly 100 feet above the sea surface to avoid getting into the clouds during his flight across Ancona is unnerving. His extraordinary sense of humour that remains alive even during adversity is praiseworthy. He has also skillfully woven in the details of other aviators like J. R. D. Tata, Louis Bleriot, Manmohan Singh who flew the Gypsy Moth, Ram Nath Chawla, Eve Jackson, Aspi Merwan. A shrewd critic, he does not flinch from highlighting the unhelpful attitude of some Indian officials abroad and also the corruption and his harassment by various officials in different countries. The Honorary Air Commodore Vijaypat Singhania’s experience in the Indian air Force would certainly benefit aspiring pilots who dream of soaring in the skies, setting records. The volume is a scintillating account of the journey of an industrialist who became an aviator, and finally a writer. |
The admission of the fears—the
24-year-old fear of vast tract of water like the Mediterranean, fear of
failure of the engine, fear of entering Albania because of poor
visibility, facing imprisonment for making spy sorties, fear of
sharks that also led him to carry a sachet of shark repellent, fear of
dozing off while flying.