AFOVA New Letter 2 of Year 2021

Section 6 - Memoirs CV 2 No. 02 / 2021 Page 142 of 332 rocket pods, Carrier Bomb like stores (CBLS), and BL755 stores and hence managing the emotions of weapon fitters who fit the AMMO and radar fitters to ensure the timely conduct of bite checks prior to a sortie was another unique task of its kind. The STO and EO need to closely monitor the fitment of weapon stores. In one of the events, I remember there was acute crisis for Jaguar trainer and all the junior pilots were worried and Flight Commander was upset as the trainer aircraft tail number was JT-059 which was due for major servicing and the number of hours left was low. The WO Desk IC was briefed by the Flight Commander that any pilot who flies need to log less in Jaguar trainer and as usual the MURPHYS LAW CAME INTO PLAY and there was a sticker put on Form 700 upon instructions of Flight Commander to log less. To make matters worse, during the Turnaround servicing (TRS) the AOC of the station himself decided to fly and arrived with CO for a sortie and upon completion of flying, while signing Form 700, the AOC did not follow the instruction of the Flight Commander as this would be a violation of flight safety clause and aircraft had to go for servicing the next day. I was answerable to CEO and AOC. However, to sum it up, the LEARNING, GROWING AND MATURING phase in the fighter squadron had created a lot of thrills and skills. Upon completion of 20 months at Cobras, I was very familiar with each of the trade duties of air warriors and coordination with MCC. Soon after, I was posted to a second assignment to another fighter Sqn was with TUSKERS between 18th Oct 2004 and 19th Jul 2006. This was another MAGICAL 20 month journey. It was even more challenging (like a T 20-20 format match) and the Sqn was operating all the fighter aircraft in the blast pen at Ambala. In a radius of 2 km with the co-located blast pens all aligned in a manner to allow single aircraft double entry. Offering the aircraft to the AOC and to AOC in C was itself a perfect drill sequence to be meticulously followed.The Blast pen no. 46 was the flight desk OPERATIONS during night flying where all the pilots would sign the Form 700, officer in charge DSS, WO in charge desk, co-ordinator were seen to coordinate the night operations under my overall supervision, the transportation of Liquid Oxygen (LOX), Line Replacement Units (LRUS) Refueller and above all carrying out the Turnaround serving (TRS) in all the pens and co –ordination of the entire flight desk operations were indeed a challenging assignment as there were no mobile communication at that time There were many instances of non-availability of MTD when I used to drive the MM Van myself. It was with walkie-talkie we did our rituals of DSS management .