"I am an airman, a pilot to be exact.

When a pilot is asked to speak of his most unforgettable experience, he is likely to spin a yarn about thrills in the air. Pilots do that quite often. The experience that I cherish to remember is that how I learnt to fly.

I flew on my first joyful ride and paid a sum Rs 5/- for five minutes. A friend of mine had done that and he told me in rather exaggerated terms about how the earth looked like from a thousand feet up.

A pilot is often asked if he is afraid of flying. The answer is that flying itself is certainly not a worrying activity. Now I want to tell you something about my own exprience of learning to fly. I began my lessons in Delhi Flying Club in January 1934. The club was located at Safdarjung aerodrome during that time. The airfield was smaller than what it is today. Its length was about 1,200 yards and breadth around 300 to 400 yards. One of the notable features of the airfield was a grave which stood in the middle of it. The grave exerted a remarkable influence on all new pilots particularly on their first solo flights. I do not recollect any one reporting an accident caused by it.

It is a pity that years later the grave had to be removed when the airport was upgraded.

The aeroplane on which I learnt to fly was a small two-seater by-plane called the Gypsy Moth. It had an engine of about 60 to 70 horse power. Its normal cruising speed was in the range of 80 miles per hour. There were very few instruments in the cockpit. Pilots were taught to fly by feel or as some used to say, 'by the seat of the pants.’ Even though there was an air speed indicator, the pilot learns to judge the speed of his aircraft by the sound that its wing-bracing wires produce as they cut through the air. At the correct speed you could hear a gentle soothing hum. If you went too fast then it screeched and if it was too slow, there was a deathly hush to warn you that the aircraft was about to fall out of the sky!

The training began with a demonstration of the three-dimensional movements of an aircraft, that is upwards, downwards, and sideways. The first thing to learn was to fly straight which is perhaps the most difficult thing of all in flying. Aircraft, particularly light trainer aircraft are extremely sensitive. The slightest movement of their controls can send them climbing or diving or pitching or rolling.

Having got the feel of the controls, the next thing was to study the behaviour of aircraft at different speeds.

A pupil must, therefore, learn what a stall is and how to recover from it. The only way to learn it is to actually do it in air. It is only then that pilot gets his first real scare. At least, it was so in my case.

Let me describe my first memorable stall. We took off quite normally and climbed to about 3,000 feet out in the direction of the Qutub. Then the instructor shouted at me and asked me to tighten my strips as much as I could, after which we did a full turn to see that there were no other aircraft near us. At that point the instructor took over the controls, leveled out the aircraft and closed the throttle. The wires stopped singing as the speed fell off and at the same time the instructor pulled up the nose of the aircraft. As we approached our stalling speed which was about 30 miles an hour, the aircraft seemed to stand still and at the same time I became aware of a vast emptiness inside me. After a few seconds of suspense, the aircraft shuddered and dropped its nose very violently and went into a diving. In the diving, it regained enough speed for the controls to become effective, so that we could pass out of the stalled condition.

The highlights of the first few flying lessons were the stall and the spin which seemed pretty frightful at that time. Yes, later as I gained experience, I could easily term them as thrills. After that followed more and more manoeuvres, such as climbing, turning and gliding. Then followed the usual grind of instructions of training flights made day after day, when every thing went wrong a hundred times! The helmeted head of instructor was there just in front and his voice was in the ears sometimes explaining and correcting and sometimes very vexed and impatient.

Flying experience is measured in terms of hours, and the hours seem awfully long in the early stages of training. I flew nearly fourteen hours dual and was in fact preparing for the day when I was told to do something else. On April 10, 1934, after I had made one of usual bumpy landings, my instructor astonished me by getting out of the front seat and telling me to go off solo.

A pilot's first solo is the most memorable affair. It represents a turning point in his career. However, that time does come for all trainees; and from that day onwards flying takes on a different aspect. It gives you a feeling of confidence, of having done something unusual, of having become a matured man where previously you were but a boy. The first solo flight consists of a take-off, circuit and landing. The take-off is really no great problem. You head the aircraft into wind, open the throttle to full power, raise the tail off the ground and then as the aircraft reaches flying speed; you go off in to the air.

This is followed by a climb to about a thousand feet and couple of turns, round the airfield. Then comes the real test; that is getting the aircraft and yourself down in one piece. Landing an aircraft is the test of the pilot's skill. What he has to do is to bring in his aircraft from the unconfined spaces of the air into a comparatively small landing area where he must make it stall on to the ground. The latitude allowed for this manoeuvres is very small. If he executed the stall more than a foot or two from the ground; the aircraft lands with bump. Greater the height from which the aircraft falls, more prominent the bump and greater the damage to the airframe. If the stall is made too low, there is a danger of telescoping the machine into the ground and that will produce unpleasant results.

There is thus no easy way out-constant practice is the only way the expertise can be acquired.

Formal training of a pilot may begin in a flying club, but there is no end to learning. He may pass out after a certain period after being declared fit and competent to captain an aircraft, but that does not mean that he has learnt all there is about flying, for as at sea so also in the air, conditions are never the same. There has to be a constant application of judgement and skill-in the world of airmanship-where weather conditions change all the time.

The full significance of learning to fly is realised only gradually. Speaking both as an amateur and a professional; I would say and here perhaps my feelings are entirely subjective-that flying produces a unique sense of elation and achievement.

Thereafter I would say that while encouraging boldness and quick decisions, flying also teaches a pilot discipline and self-restraint and of course it is hardly necessary to say that it gives the pilot a new perspective, both physically and mentally".