12th October 1995
Banglore Airport
I board my 1st ever International flight all alone from Banglore to Colombo Airlanka [ Now Srilankan ] flt no UL 342 with an aim to be an Airline Pilot. I am a frequent flyer with dad n mom but never few alone on International sectors, though I flown many times on domestic routes. Wearing blue t shirt n black Pepe jeans with Nike my favourate shoes. Bit nurvous and too much entho about being a future Airline Pilot.
I kept my Admission letter of Asia's best and most reputed flight school Asian School of
Aviation. I was awaiting for an Air hostess to ask me " where are you going" so I can show her my letter and make her impress. So she can take better care of mine. It did not happend and I landed at Colombo Internatonal Airport Runway 27.
Ayubuan, Welcome to Colombo Internatonal Airport Cabin crew annouced and we slowly started deboarding the plane.
Colombo Airport
Welcome to Asian School of Aviation I saw a person at Arrival with my Name play card IMRAN KHAN from India. It was so proud to see such card of my own name at Airport. I immidiately hoped in to Academy's Totoyata Ace Van and drove down to all the way south of Colombo city Mt Lavinia . I was browsing through all nice places of this paradise Iceland. Mount Lavinia a typical tourist city of Srilanka where you get 75% White and only 25% locals. It was an amazing experience all together.
I started my Ground classes for Student Pilot Licence [ SPL ]. with other fellow Pilots from all over, Captain Namal was my 1st ground Instructor, very young Pilot but full of Aviation knowledge and amazingly good with communication. Captain Ravi Silva our Chief Flight Instructor [ CFI ] an ATPL from Europe and Type rated on Boeing 747 from USA had an amazing command was the owner of this Academy too. Academy has two divisions Air Taxi Charter & Cargo and Flight Training.
Now Aircrafts, Hangers, Fuel, Tower were now part of my life, instead of flak and the normal high risk of flying a plane. On my 2nd Solo cross country flight We moved into Merode Castle, about three or four miles from the town of Gale on the Gale Harber Roer River. The castle had been built in the Middle Ages. It was surrounded by a moat, and had several staircases leading up the circular towers to the ramparts, where archers in centuries past had defended the
castle. Nothing about the area seemed particularly familiar to me, except that I knew I had
flown several missions to touch & Go my targets in this vicinity, especially during
November. We were there now making preparations for a major task to get my PPL asap.
The photograph below shows me in front of the main entrance to the heavily designed
Hotels with swiming pool.
I was flying at an altitude of 9000 ft given by Colombo Tower. [ Yes I was still under the range of VHF Tower only ]
Read more very soon .....................
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Capt Shekhar Gupta
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Capt Ankisha Awasthi
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As a fact out of every 1000 Pilots only 1 Pilot becomes an Airline Pilot, the book is all about those 999 Pilots only.
Hello Shekhar,
ReplyDeleteThis is Aakriti . I am found of reading books and novels. And I read this Book twice so that I can get the essence of this book, which you have mailed me. This is a very good starting, as you told me it is your first book. It is a nice and interesting story. It shows the enthusiasm of that Pilot as well as the writer of the book.
Actually I am totally new to the aviation, so some term of AVIATION were unknown to me and bcoz of that, some of the events of this story I did not understand. But this is really encouraging story for those who want to make their Career in Aviation World.....!!
Best of Luck...
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Thanks & Regards
Aakrati Gupta