My First Flight

Background:

• My BTP viva occurred on 15^th June.
• I left for Bangalore the same night to attend to the 60^th birthday celebrations of My Dad.(Birth star fundaes)
• Left Bangalore on night of 18^th June to Chennai to collect my provisional certificate.
• Left Chennai the next night to Bangalore.

All the above movements were in the Volvo Buses of KSRTC.But this post is not about those travels.It is about my first Flight Journey which happened on the evening of 20^th June.

On 20^th June, My parents and I left Home at 1 p.m. to catch Flight IC 610 to Ahmedabad.Leaving at 5 p.m. (if you are surprised you have not seen airport road traffic at peak hours). We reached the airport at around half past three. I eagerly get out of the cab to……..disappointment.My idea of an airport derived from movies was that of a large busy place with incessant announcements and bustle. The Bangalore airport terminal is smaller any of the 20 odd bus depots in the city.

Clearing the security checks, while waiting for the announcement to board, among other things,we saw:

1. A K Anthony the former chief minister of kerala.
2. The lightning test facility of HAL (from outside).
3. Kingfisher airhostesses; (I was hoping for some sign of an exclamation from my mother but... nothing. Moms nowadays have become too liberal.)

Sometime later, we were aboard the plane, a 150 seater Airbus A320 , I got the window seat to the right. Due to the fear of overshooting the baggage restriction, we traveled lightly(it was 30 kg per person . I even called up chintamani to find out if they allowed us to take a combined single piece totalling the weights ). We had taken a suitcase weighing a heavy 25 kg! and 3 pieces of hand baggage measured to fit the dimensions specified. Imagine our mental state when people brought in multiple bags and started putting them everywhere including on the space above our seats.

Anyway, we were all buckled up and instructed as the plane was being taxied to the Taxiway. (I realized that an Airplane cannot move back on its own). As the plane was moving towards the runway, I saw the wing oscillating due the lift being created. Then,

Panic! What if the wing fails due to fatigue!

I tried to calm myself and by lazing out on the seat when an airhostess asked me to upright my seat. Still I stretched out my legs and tried what I could in that position. The plan turned into the runway and started accelerating. I was concentrating on the swallow hard part when suddenly, my toes felt like they were in a vice. That is when I realized the reason for sitting upright. Then I looked out as the wings were no longer oscillating, the plane was pushing on my back with full force when suddenly, my feet were lifted from the ground.

That must have been the best (and most expensive) coaster ride of my life.

I was recovering from the adrenaline rush when the pilot rolled the plane right. I went @$##% $#%#% (silently by good fortune) .That was bloody scary. I was looking down at earth on the left and all that is preventing a fatal contact is a set of two hollow metal slabs. I do not imagine I did anything till we rolled back to a more balanced position.

Slowly, the aircraft gained altitude. I played show and tell with my mom .I recognized even Yelahanka airport. It felt as if we were traveling very slowly. 5 minutes into the flight, we were still next to Bellary road,when the clouds started covering my view. Chocolates were being served. There was a magazine in the seat pocket. I was reading an article about Delhi metro in Alliance air’s in-house magazine when,

“Veg or Non- Veg?”

“3 Non- Veg please”

AI’s in–flight food is designed to keep people happy and plump: even Brown bread had cheese in it. I stuffed up everything and started gawking out again.

The view was …Fantastic! Magnifico! … Wow!

I never ever imagined that cumulo-nimbus clouds looked so beautiful from above. Grey, off-white, white, silver white, even over-pixellated brilliant white. It was like a sea of vanilla Ice cream with lot of whipped cream on it and silver paint sprayed on it.

The plane started rolling left and an announcement came for us to latch seat belts and for cabin crew to return to stations. The captain had decided to move through the clouds.

There is a lot of literature on flying through clouds. None of that can explain the feeling of sitting in a plane, flying god knows how far from ground, looking outside to zero visibility. It is like being sealed from everything else, comfortable in a tube . Only when there is a jolt/change in altitude that we that we are in a perilous situation kms away from ground.

When we came out, I looked out to see if there was any sign black soil of the Deccan trap. There was none. “The plane is very slow” .I got bored and tried going to sleep. No sooner,

“Your attention please, In Five minutes we will reach Mumbai…”

:O:O:O:O:O:O:O

There outside was the Mumbai-Pune highway, the Ghats and then …the wings stared coming apart!!

The method an A320 brakes is stretching the ailerons downwards along with the fuel booms. That is a bloody scary sight for a first timer, especially a metallurgical engineer when he notices the aileron desperately vibrating hard, prevented from coming out by some rivets.The fear backin bangalore airport was nothing compared to this one. Fretting fatigue, Corrosion aided fatigue, Miner’s law…….

After we landed, I switched on my mobile and messaged Arpan. There was a sum of 6 bucks left to talk. I started messaging Arpan hoping that by the time Airtel guys realized, I would have made some profit, alas! To rub salt to the wound, Arpan stopped messaging too.

After god knows how much time spent skimming through the complimentary issues of newspapers, the plane started moving again. Light was going down as the plane took off. It rolled above Arabian Sea giving me a 30 brilliant view of Bombay coast from Juhu (recognized by the sea shore residences) to Malad creek ( looks like a river and is north of Juhu).

Looking out, all I could see were the flashing lights of the wings getting blurred. Finally I cracked the mystery of aircraft lights. They exist to prevent collisions between aircrafts. They are two lights: red and white on both the front and back of an aircraft wing.A combination of these actually signals whether the craft is: Holding altitude, climbing/ descending. (I forgot the exact details but red on both sides means holding altitude).

Grub time again. Vegetarian but nonetheless double the amount required for a normal human. So, being quadruple stuffed, I went to sleep. While everyone else in the plane must have been tensed by each bump of the flight, I was happily dreaming that I was in a Volvo bus returning to Bangalore (the A.C and the jerks simulating the road journey well).

My mom woke me up; Announcement was on for straightening the seats. Ahmedabad airport’s was smaller than that of Bangalore. Ahmedabad was like an oven with hot air blowing at the face. (This was after sun-down).

We took a taxi to IIM. The size of the campus and the dorm rooms completed my day of surprises

If I ever become the leader of the world, I promise that evryone will get to fly in aplane at least once.