AFOVA New Letter 2 of Year 2021

Section 7 – Panorama CV 2 No. 02 / 2021 Page 297 of 332 During my visit to Dabolim prior to commissioning of Rajali, there was a concerted effort to try and fly an Alize to Rajali as the “last of the hookers and the first to land in Rajali”. Unfortunately despite many air tests, this aircraft was not ready and was not airworthy. I had even volunteered to fly in this aircraft but the aircraft just did not want to go to east coast! The honour of test landing finally went to an Islander in the presence of then C-in- C East Admiral Shekhavat. That was some evolution to say the least as all the civil workers were crisscrossing the runway and trying to reach their places of work which was in full swing. On the day of first landing, it became necessary to line up the runway on either side with service personnel to prevent any mishaps due to inadvertent crossing. The Alize arrived later by road and is now has a pride of place opposite to the Admin building. A decision had already been taken to shift the Helicopter Training School (HTS) and also create second line facilities for maintaining the Chetaks. There was even a task allocation for the year even before we were commissioned. Likewise, the shift of the sonobuoy simulator for the TU142 and the facilities for the Base Support Facility (BSF) needed to be shifted by road from Goa. The entire commissioning crew needs to be complemented for the professional and time bound manner in which all the facilities were shifted and operationalized in no time. The commissioning on 11 th March posed its own challenges as the Runway was not complete and many of the facilities were yet to be operationalized. It was also decided to bring the President (late) Sri Venkataraman and the entourage in Seakings from Chennai and then take them back directly from Rajali in the President’s Boeing soon after commissioning. TheMess was also not complete and it took some effort to convince the security staff that it was safe to use the Kitchen which still had exposed bricks for preparing the banquet lunch. The flurry of air activity on the commissioning day was unprecedented. With the unidirectional runway due to the unfinished work, it was quite a challenge to get the aircraft to be parked in a convenient fashion that would allow ease of manouevring. The commissioning by the President of India itself was spectacular with then CNS Admiral Ramdas, C-in-C, East Vice Admiral Shekhawat, DCNS Vice Admiral Guha, Commissioning Warrant being read out by Captain RS Vasan, CO INS Rajali on 11th March 1992