Posted on 05/12/2016 12:30:50 AM PDT by sukhoi-30mki
Arun Prakash (left) and Shikker Raj Pillai
Naval Air Station INS Hansa, Goa, May 11: Blessed are lives like Captain Shikku Raj Pillai's: fighter pilot, naval officer, a hero here this morning, the last on planet earth to land the Sea Harrier.
Soon, this afternoon, he would formally hand over command of his squadron, the INAS 300 "White Tigers", to Captain Harshveer Singh. Harshveer is younger and flies the much younger MiG29K.
Pillai is moving from Goa to New Delhi. He is delighted to be the hero today but his sunburnt features pale in contemplating the immediate future.
As of now, the Sea Harrier will not fly any more. During the ceremony this morning in which the Sea Harrier bowed out, the navy suffused the event with an emotion that cannot be easily associated with flying machines.
This plane, though, leaves many here, such as Steve Sage, the retired engineer from Rolls Royce who nursed the Pegasus engines for the White Tigers, with a sense of the unreal. Almost.
Sage worked up the engines with the squadron and got so deeply involved that he moved home from England to Goa. His children went to school here. Later, he moved even to Kochi when in 2004 the navy decided to set up a repairing yard after the sanctions following the 1998 nuclear tests put spares in short supply.
The two most important spares, a jet pump temperature gauge and the RPM (revolutions per minute) gauge, were not available till Sage worked with defence public sector Hindustan Aeronautics to make them in India.
The White Tigers had that quality almost always. The Sea Harriers drew them here to Goa, in and around Hansa, after retirement. They drew men like Sanjoy Gupta and Sunil Damle, men who have known life in metropolises but have tired of that and, long after they have stopped flying, worry about not sleeping to the drone and draught of aircraft engines in muggy weather.
Pillai could well end up like Commodore Sanjoy Gupta, the handsome and dapper pilot and squash player who was among the first to fly the SHAR (Sea Harrier) to India with Admiral Arun Prakash. But Pillai has a long way to go for that yet. Right now he does not want to contemplate the immediate future.
That, the immediate future, is about to take him to a desk job in Air Headquarters where he will be pushing files with hands that mostly opened throttles and controlled, uniquely, the nozzle levers and the joystick. He will be posted to a cell that will take on the planning of future aircraft for the navy.
A pilot in his squadron speaks of his frustration openly enough but on second thoughts asks not to be named. "I don't want to fly Russian aircraft," he says. But the squadron will do that now.
Such quotes are difficult to come by, and hugely sensitive. They can be interpreted as influential for one or another arms lobby. It is just so important, therefore, to be upfront in uttering and reporting them.
Kumkum Prakash, wife of Admiral Prakash, now retired, says Pillai was a kid in Yeovilton, the Royal Navy base in Somerset, when her husband was in training to fly the Sea Harrier.
Prakash was the first commanding officer of the White Tigers when the squadron took to the Sea Harrier, the fascinating fighter jet that can jump up to fly and slide down to land.
"Yes," says Pillai. "I was there from the age of seven to ten."
His father, Commander Rajan Pillai, was the air electrical officer for the squadron in Yeovilton in 1983, training with the ground engineers of the Royal Navy and BaE Systems. The Sea Harrier was first flown to India in 1983 by Prakash.
In the 33 years since, right till this morning when the water jets in a ceremonial bow-away "washed the bloodstains of fallen warriors" off Pillai's Sea Harrier, life has meant being in and around INS Hansa for the captain.
Pillai married into the airbase in 2005, as it were. His father-in-law was the air engineering officer of the neighbouring 310 squadron. In the National Defence Academy, Pillai had first chosen to be an air force cadet, opting for the navy only in the sixth term. He had to be among the top two at the Air Force Academy to opt for fighter flying.
In between doing "sea time" as XO (executive officer) of the INS Akshay and qualifying as a flight instructor, Pillai had prepared for a role that he had hardly thought about, being to the manner born: bidding farewell to the SHAR.
He admits that "I really cannot think so much now". He is surrounded by friends and colleagues and their wives, all of whom are admiring him candidly.
He has time only to pose for a photograph in front of the Sea Harrier he has just brought to a soft landing after a legendary mid-air bow. He poses with the first commanding officer of the Sea Harrier squadron, Prakash. He fits into the frame as the last commanding officer of the Sea Harriers.
The squadron stays. Pillai leaves. The Sea Harriers will be classified as AWD (aircraft awaiting disposal). The pilots will fly the MiG29K.
Great photo.
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