AFOVA New Letter 2 of Year 2021

Section 5 – War Diary CV 2 No. 02 / 2021 Page 105 of 332 The Dakota was a transport plane meant to be flown by two pilots and two crew members. The cockpit was large enough and some of the switches and controls were accessible only to the co-pilot. Flying Officer Karandikar sat down to think about how he would accomplish the duties of all the crew members in the cockpit without endangering the aircraft and its occupants. It was a tough ask and his thoughts took him back to his training days. He had been posted to 43 Squadron in January 1971 to fly the Dakota. The 'Dak', as it is known, had been in service for a long time in the IAF. The aircraft had been modified for military use from the original DC-3 variant; it could fly at about 250 kilometres per hour and go about 2,500 km on a full tank. The aircraft had done yeoman service in the Second World War and continues to be in service even today. On the occasion of India's 72nd Republic Day, it performed a fly-past at Rajpath. It also endeared audiences at the Aero India at the Yelahanka Air Force Base (in Bengaluru). "I was commissioned in 1967 so I had already spent a few years in the IAF and had adequate experience on the An-12, which was the workhorse of the IAF at that time," says Kandy Sir. Flying the Dak was new to him and he had to get operational on the aircraft by flying 100 hours in the NEFA (North-East Frontier Agency, as present day Arunachal Pradesh and parts of Assam were then known). "I was called the 'Keen Kumar' of the squadron since I always volunteered for trips and was always ready to take to the skies. Gaining 100 hours wasn't easy. One barely got 15 to 20 minutes of captain flying whilst on the supply drop missions," he says. But his perseverance ensured his logbook soon had the required flying hours and, within a few months, he became an instrument-rated captain on the Dakota. The genocide in East Pakistan was all over the news at that time. Eastern India was flooded with refugees fleeing the massacres in East Pakistan. "The entire Eastern Command was soon declared a disturbed zone under Operation Cactus Lily. For us Flying Officers, it meant that rations would be free and there would be no fat mess bills! It alsomeant that we would not get any dearness allowance," recalls Kandy Sir.