I Learnt more than Flying from them: GSN Prasad

Author: Harish Masand (Retd)

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Air Marshal (R) Harish Masand says I learnt more than flying from them: GSN Prasad

01 Aug 2023

In mid–June 1967, I landed up in Jet Training Wing at Hakimpet (Secunderabad) to train as a fighter pilot on the Vampire after about 6 weeks of summer holidays at home. While the break was fun and I got to meet my family and friends including a lot of my classmates who were still going through their engineering course, I was somewhat on tenterhooks and eager to get back to flying and regain my confidence which had been dented a bit in the last stages of my training on the Harvard/Texan in Air Force Flying College, Jodhpur. That, however, is part of another story on my days in Jodhpur which I would narrate, perhaps in the next episode. So, please forgive me if I am not quite in sequence for the story of Hakimpet and what I learnt from my Instructor on the Vampire, then Flight Lieutenant GSN (Gudiseva Sri Nagendra) Prasad. Briefly though, I had been shaken after the firing I got after my first night flying sole in Jodhpur, all due to my own fault, and hadn’t been able to perform in flying after that at the level I expected of myself. Due to this, after giving it a lot of thought during the break, I was eager to get back and prove to myself, if none else, that I was capable of making a good fighter pilot. The added attraction, incentive or motivating factor, whatever one may call it, was that I was going to fly a jet finally which was a dream come true for me personally.

After about 20 days of ground subjects and training which included technical aspects of the Vampire aircraft and its systems as also a mock ejection drill with a jump from about 8–10 feet for a simulated descent on a parachute, we finally came to the flight complex and were introduced to our future instructors. Initially, I was assigned to Flight Lieutenant Suman Gupta who went through the cockpit procedures and drills with me, including emergency drills, and took me up for the first sortie of air experience on the Vampire Mk 55, BY 998–the bird cage trainer aircraft, on the 4th of July 1967. For some in the US, this was Independence Day but for me it was a red–letter day as my first baby step towards fulfilling my childhood dream of flying fighter aircraft. Flt Lt Gupta was a gentle and friendly instructor and I truly enjoyed the sortie with him with all the thrills of speeds and heights along with the gentle hum of the Goblin jet engine behind on the Vampire. For some strange reason that I never figured out even later, after this single sortie with Flt Lt Gupta, I was kept on the ground for almost six days and then assigned to Flt Lt GSN Prasad for regular flying from July 10, 1967.

(Image: bharat-rakshak.com)

Flt Lt Prasad turned out to be even more gentle and patient than Flt Lt Gupta. He never raised his voice even once on me and demonstrated everything once with a soft patter telling me what he was doing and suggesting minor corrections whenever I attempted the same manoeuvre. Engine start in the Vampire was a very tricky operation, at least in our time with those old refurbished engines since these had a centrifugal compressor instead of the multi–stage axial compressors in the more modern jets I flew later. Flt Lt Prasad showed me how to gently and smoothly open the HP Cock as the engine wound up during the starting cycle timing the movement of the HP Cock with the sound of the engine by feel so as not to make it rumble, exceed the JPT or lead to a wet start. Even in flying, he made very gentle and smooth movements of the controls to get the aircraft to do the required manoeuvre. I guess, he was quite happy with the way I performed the manoeuvres, having learnt the art of gentle handling before from Flt Lt VP Kala and Wg Cdr Babla Senapati in the earlier Harvard/Texan days in Jodhpur. Flt Lt Prasad also started telling me that instead of chasing accuracy in flying in terms of speeds or heights with a lot of attention on instruments, it was more important to just have the aircraft trimmed in the estimated required attitude and let the desired height or speed come slowly so that you found the time for tactical tasks like checking the area around for other aircraft thus simulating tail clearance for formation members, glancing at ground features to know your ground position at all times even after a series of manoeuvres and paying attention to the radio and general situational awareness. With all this in my mind from his teachings, it was here in Hakimpet on Vampires that, under his guidance, I formulated my principle of gentle and smooth movements of the control which stipulated that the lesser the movement of the controls, the lesser would be the counter correction to stop the initiated movement of the aircraft and thus less time and attention devoted to flying the aircraft and more time looking out and doing the other tasks required in fighter flying. Slowly, this principle evolved into spending just 5% or even less of your time and attention in flying the aircraft and the remaining 95% or more on the tactical tasks required of a single–seat fighter pilot. I also found that accuracy in flying came almost on its own after a few sorties of care–free handling of the aircraft in this manner. After a few sorties of watching me fly, Flt Lt Prasad started encouraging me to try different combination of manoeuvres on my own thus building up my confidence in handling the aircraft gradually. Being soft–spoken as he was, since he never said much in the aircraft or even in the debriefs on the ground after the sorties, I got the feeling that he was satisfied with the way I was progressing in my training syllabus. It was almost like he read my mind because that was exactly what I needed at that stage to regain my confidence in flying. He also started making me fly with different instructors once in a while so that I could pick up some more tricks or tips from them. Amongst these were Sqn Ldr Jal Mistry, Flt Lt Jagbir Singh and Sqn Ldr ID Bhalla, the latter known to be a tough but good instructor whose pupils generally went for the trophy check. I always wanted to fly a sortie with Flt Lt Tripathi who was famous in JTW in our time for doing a triple roll of the top on the Vampire. Unfortunately, I could not directly ask for such a sortie nor did the opportunity ever come through so I had to try this manoeuvre on my own in my solo sorties but somehow never succeeding in having enough speed after the second roll of the top to attempt a third. One time when I did try to push my luck, I almost entered a spin for which the Vampire 52 was notorious but, fortunately, came out just a bit shaken due to the smooth handling of the aircraft that had been taught to me and ingrained in me by then. Later, I tried to analyse why I couldn’t do it and after an indirect discussion with Flt Lt Prasad, I figured out that I couldn’t commence the manoeuvre at lower levels as Flt Lt Tripathi did, as an instructor, because we pupils were restricted to a minimum height of 6000 feet for any aerobatics. Not that we had any Flight Data Recorder which would have recorded the initial violation in height if I had attempted the manoeuvre in the local flying area on my own but I did not want to violate the rules and break the trust placed in me by all my instructors and felt that caution and discretion was the better part of valour at that stage, leaving such attempts to my later days in operational squadrons.

(Image: bharat-rakshak.com)

Flt Lt Prasad always encouraged me to push myself to higher standards in the air while he also monitored that I was doing well in ground subjects. I still recall one day in September 1967 when I was out on a solo sortie and low clouds drifted in over the entire area blanketing the airfield as well the nearest diversion of Begumpet. That day, I was, perhaps, the farthest out in the local flying area and though all others had been recalled and recovered before I arrived over the base on mental DR and as established by the homer. The airfield was completely covered with these clouds and without a radar/GCA or even an NDB, there was no way of getting below the clouds safely to sight the runway and carry out a landing. The only option was to bale out of the aircraft when the fuel ran out. I could hear both Sqn Ldr Jal Mistry, the Flight Commander, and Flt Lt Prasad on the radio who calmly tried to comfort me and hold on. Somehow, with the help of my changing homings, I was fortunate enough to manage a descent in a safe area to about 100 feet above ground and just below the clouds so that I could see the ground and find my way back to the airfield culminating in a sort of a timed circuit and a safe landing. I would never forget the gentle pat on the back I got from both my instructor, Flt Lt Prasad, and Sqn Ldr Jal Mistry when I got out of the aircraft.Time flew in Hakimpet and with almost 15–20 hours of flying a month, soon it was November 1967 and I was nearing the end of my syllabus. About this time, Flt Lt Prasad, perhaps, felt that I had a shot at the flying trophy and started talking about things to watch out for in such a trophy check. After Wg Cdr PD Dogra, the then Chief instructor, finished my Final Test on 2 December, I was given one refresher sortie with Sqn Ldr Bhalla after a break of two weeks on 16 December, and then taken up by Wg Cdr Dogra again the same day for a trophy check. Again, the firm handshake and a shy hug from Flt Lt Prasad after this sortie is still etched vividly in my mind.

So much for the professional aspects, on the social side the pupils were generally not entertained by the instructors in our time. However, Flt Lt Prasad used to gently enquire about our Sundays and hint that we should go out on the weekend and have a good time in the twin cities of Hyderabad/ Secunderabad which were very cosmopolitan those days and also had some good restaurants serving a great change from the Cadets’ Mess food that we were living on through the week. Surprisingly, those days, the meals in such restaurants were not very expensive and highly affordable in the monthly pocket allowance we were allowed to receive. I still recall that a good Chinese meal with a bottle of beer in Nanking’s cost just about Rupees 12–15 per head, requiring at least three persons to share the dishes. This included the cost of bussing there and back. Sometimes, when we felt rich, we even took a cab back to the Cadets’ Mess on the far side of the airfield since the bus stop was some walk. The famous Biryani of Hyderabad was even cheaper so we could afford to go out at least on two weekends every month on the Rupees 40 that we were then allowed to receive per month from our parents. On 14 September 1967, as per my log book, Flt Lt Prasad took me to Bangalore for a High Level Navigation sortie culminating with a radar controlled approach and landing at the HAL airfield in Bangalore. This was my first ever visit to Bangalore though it meant little because we were supposed to just refuel and return to Hakimpet at low–level. As it happened, Flt Lt Gupta also brought one of his pupils to Bangalore for the same navigation sortie within a few minutes of our arrival. During the turn–around, the HAL crew refuelling our aircraft noticed a fuel leak and told us it would take some time to repair and make the aircraft airworthy. Since Flt Lt Prasad had to get back to Hakimpet that day itself, Flt Lt Gupta and he did a deal trading aircraft, and in the bargain the pupil in it, letting me stay back for the night in Bangalore. I was quite happy to spend the night in Bangalore since I had never been there before and had heard so much about its salubrious climate as the Garden City as also its night life. We spent the night in the Trinity officers’ Mess and Flt Lt Gupta treated me that evening to a sumptuous dinner at the famous joint just off MG Road called Blue Fox with a live band and some 126 great music as also some mild mocktails so that I didn’t lose my head that evening. Once again, an initiation and part of growing up that I haven’t forgotten. Towards the end of our stay in Hakimpet we got commissioned on 31 December, I spent many afternoons/ evenings enjoying the hospitality of our instructors and their spouses which included by then Sqn Ldrs Prasad, Gupta and Flt Lt Jagbir Singh and even the tough Flt Cdr, Sqn Ldr ID Bhalla. Through such interaction, I learnt some more about the social graces and the camaraderie in the Air Force as also the generosity of all these instructors and their graceful spouses who groomed young chickens like us into being officers and gentlemen, apart from just fighter pilots. To them, we owe most of everything of what we are today. GSN Sir left the Air Force due to some personal commitments soon after commanding 22 Squadron in Hasimara and Bagdogra in 1980 while I was in Iraq and we met rarely due to our different paths in the Air Force. However, later whenever I passed by Secunderabad, we did talk if not meet. I have also been fortunate to meet Air Commodore ID Bhalla when he was commanding Palam, when we operated from there for the Air Force day, and later both his fighter pilot sons, Rajnish and Navneet, who were in MiG–29s and with me in my time in Poona. I also called on and met Wg Cdr and Mrs GSN Prasad in Hyderabad while organising the Golden Jubilee of our course, the 98 GD(P) and 37 GD(N) in June 2017 and had the pleasure of hosting him to our reunion dinner in January 2018. I am also blessed to keep meeting Air Commodore and Mrs Jagbir Singh whenever we visit Wellington/Conoor. Jagbir Sir also commanded 28 Squadron, the First Supersonics, many moons before me and I had the pleasure of meeting them recently during the Diamond Jubilee celebrations of the Squadron in Adampur. Every time I meet any of these illustrious instructors, what comes foremost to my mind is how much I owe them for nurturing us the way they did and to count my blessings.