AFOVA New Letter 2 of Year 2021

Section 5 – War Diary CV 2 No. 02 / 2021 Page 111 of 332 "En route, we had seen the silent Pakistani anti-aircraft guns and the troops lined next to them with their arms placed on the ground. "The cheering crowds at Dacca received us as heroes and carried us on their shoulders. "There was a happy mayhem on the streets which I remember clearly. "I was standing right next to the table when the document was being signed; however, I saw some of my army course mates at the venue and went to greet them. If I hadn't, I would have also been there in that historic photograph!" "I had flown a total of 49 sorties, of which five were as a single pilot on the Dakota, in 14 days, including 15 sorties on one day! "It had been an experience of a lifetime for me. "Although I hadn't faced many enemy bullets due to the kind of flying that the Dakota did, it was a great experience to land on unprepared short runways and that too at night without lights and, of course, sometimes all alone in the cockpit, something I never got to do in the rest of my long innings in the IAF. That was indeed baptism by fire for a fledgling pilot like me!" We had begun this conversation talking about flying the Dak with just Kandy Sir in the cockpit. While navigating through the stories of the war, we had almost forgotten this interesting aspect. "Oh yes," he smiled, "we have rambled on, speaking of everything else but that! "I was indeed in a bit of trauma as to how to handle the aircraft all alone when it had been designed to be flown by two and more. I decided to fly it from the left seat, which was where I was most comfortable (the left seat was the captain's seat). "The levers that operated the undercarriage and flaps were on the side of the co-pilot. Also, I had to do all the checks myself, without the help of the second mate in the cockpit to monitor if all was going well. "I realised a thing or two about cockpit crew resource management which was just taught in theory in our training!"