AFOVA New Letter 2 of Year 2021

Section 5 – War Diary CV 2 No. 02 / 2021 Page 104 of 332 8 1971 War - Meet War Hero 'Keen Kumar’ Air Cmde Nitin Sathe Genre: War Diary have run into Air Commodore Arun Dattraya Karandikar many times during my career in the Indian Air Force. I knew him as the VIP pilot who only flew the President, the prime minister and other VIPs. He was one of the first IAF pilots to be trained to fly the Boeing 737. VIP trips for us helicopter boys meant picking up the VIP from the airport, transporting them to some remote helipad and getting them back to the airport where they would whisked away in the mighty jet flown by Air Commodore Karandikar or Kandy Sir as we called him. These were short and sweet trips where we hardly got to see or interact with the VIPs. We always looked up in awe at the communication squadron pilots who flew for long hours with these important people and got photographed with them too! At that time, I did not know that Air Commodore Karandikar had been baptised by fire in the 1971 War. Little did I know then that I would be interviewing him one day to find out about his exploits in 1971, flying the most intriguing aircraft -- the Dakota -- in the most remarkable and trying circumstances. "On December 7, I was called by Group Captain Chandan Singh, the Station Commander, to fly to Kumbhigram (in Silchar, Assam) in the Dakota. What he said thereafter floored me. He asked, 'Are you confident about flying the Dak alone?'" Air Commodore Karandikar remembers. Without waiting for an answer from the bewildered then Flying Officer Karandikar, the commander -- in his quintessential manner -- told him, 'Carry on! And safe flying!' I