Simply Fly

by Capt G R Gopinath

  I told Jayanth he would have to fly along the highway and locate the accident location by sight. My confidence in Jayanth’s ability to carry off the mission was natural. Jayanth, like many army pilots, had flown in war, in emergencies, and on rescue missions. He had flown over regions devastated by a natural calamity such as flood and earthquake. These pilots are agile, and intuitively aware of speed, improvisation, and safety—all necessary ingredients in such missions.

  Jayanth and medical staff from Manipal Hospital were at the airfield before dawn. They took off with the sun and headed straight along the Hyderabad highway. Jayanth spotted the ill-fated bus and landed close to it in an open field. The injured had been moved to the nearest village hospital. Jayanth took off again and landed close to the hospital, picked up the doctor’s wife, and flew straight back.

  As soon as Jayanth landed in Jakkur airfield we rushed the patient to hospital in an ambulance. It took Jayanth an hour and a half to transport the patient over hundreds of miles. It was tragic and ironical that it would now take as much time to get her to the hospital on the other side of Bengaluru, driving through the city’s chaotic traffic.

  The thought kept recurring—of the innumerable seriously injured patients—we had been able to rescue just one. It was a sad reflection of our system that we had not been able to use the helicopter, a swift and highly versatile mode of transport, for such a useful purpose simply because of the question of viability, but that was the truth.

  Unfortunately, even as the ambulance sped towards the hospital with a team of doctors and nurses attending, the patient breathed her last. We were deeply affected. If only there had been a helipad near the hospital, we might have been able to save her life. It was a gloomy day. Poor infrastructure had defeated all our efforts. I began thinking about ways of preventing something like this from happening again. Our team got together to ponder over this tragic end and brainstormed on how we could avoid such tragedy in the future. We were in the midst of the debate when the phone rang. It was Dr Venkataramana. He said in the light of the recent misfortune, doctors at the hospital had been discussing how to forestall such an eventuality in the future and the director of Manipal Hospital wanted to explore possible solutions with me. When could we meet? It was about eleven o’clock, and I said right away. We agreed to meet that afternoon.

  The director, a number of senior doctors and members of the hospital board were at the meeting. I said we should identify a place near the hospital where a helicopter could land. A member of the board was quick to point out that the hospital owned an acre of land right next door. We had to examine the land and see if it suited our requirements. One of our pilots surveyed the land the very next day and declared that it was perfect.

  We designed the work flow: names of people on either side to be called; numbers to be called; inter-agency communication protocols; and action prompts. We decided on a 24/7 emergency number and on the series of actions to be taken: by pilots on our side; by doctors, nurses, ambulance drivers, and emergency staff on theirs. We addressed issues regarding medicines, first-aid, briefings, billing, and other legal formalities.

  We gave the medical evacuation operation a procedural structure that was dependable and fail-proof and undertook a dry run the very next day. We did a mock drill involving all the series of steps in the protocol decided and using a mock patient on a stretcher. The drill was successful and we called a press conference to announce the new medical evacuation service.

  The drill had not come a day too early. That very day at midnight Jayanth received a call from Swami Kaleshwar. The Swami’s mother had fallen, suffered serious head injuries, and was in a coma. By 6 a.m. the helicopter took off for Penukonda and brought her to the Manipal Hospital helipad which we had just created. Luck was with us this time and the old lady survived.

  Medical evacuation using our helicopter caught the imagination of the middle-classes too. A fruit merchant from Belgaum hired our helicopter to save the life of a loved one. People who hired the helicopter were often not very rich, but faced with a life-threatening situation involving the near and dear ones. They cobbled together their meagre resources and hired the service.

  There was a gentleman from Coorg who had a lung collapse and needed immediate specialist medical attention. Jayanth took off but found there was no place to land near the patient’s residence and therefore landed at Tata’s Gonikappa Golf Club not far away. Jayanth brought the patient to Manipal helipad and the latter survived.

  In the years that have followed, Deccan has been involved in many rescue missions: in Kabul, Sri Lanka, Nepal, and in various states of south India. We have even airlifted patients from seafaring vessels on the high seas and enabled liver transplant by transporting liver from a brain dead donor from Bengaluru to Delhi. We have tie-ups, besides Manipal Hospital, with Apollo Hospitals, East-West Rescue, and Global International SOS based in Singapore.

  Deccan Aviation today handles almost a case a day, and several other helicopter companies offer medical evacuation on a routine basis across India. However, even after twelve years since Deccan came into existence, only a miniscule proportion of the population is able to avail the service as insurance has still not stepped in. We have miles to go and many promises to keep!

  We publicized many of these true stories of daring and human courage. The press lapped them up as the stories touched a sensitive chord and for the company it meant loads of free publicity.

  As we went along, we discovered new uses for the helicopter. We got acquainted with its potential for innovative applications. One such use was suggested by an assignment we did for Discovery Channel. Discovery had commissioned a team to film the seven wonders of the world. They had covered the Pyramids and the Great Wall of China. For photography, the team had hired the services of the man who had filmed Titanic (1997) and Out of Africa (1985). The series director suggested to the channel that the meaning of the word ‘wonder’ be redefined to allow for a shift of focus from the Taj Mahal, without detracting from its magnificence, to a different India in the south, equally if not more wondrous, of which he was aware. South India, he said, featured temples of colossal size, scale, and grandeur that were of unsurpassed artistic brilliance. These temples were little known to the average tourist in the western world.

  He spoke about the great temples built since ancient times, and continually added to or modified by the Pallava, the Chola, the Pandya, the Vijayanagara, and Nayaka rulers over hundreds of years, many built along the Kaveri river. He said they left the visitor with a sense of awe and wonder. The cultural significance of these temples, he felt, was quite unmatched by anything elsewhere in the world where the temples had thus far remained ‘undiscovered’.

  The channel concurred with the director’s suggestion that they do a series in south India. Deccan Aviation was by this time well-established, so they wanted to use our helicopter. There were some technical challenges to be addressed by us. The Discovery team said they would be using a nose-mounted ‘gyro-stabilized camera’ which would be mounted outside the helicopter. The photographer would sit in the passenger compartment and control the camera using microwave actuated remote control device.

  Gyro-stabilized cameras are designed to completely obviate vibrations and they cost almost as much as a small helicopter. The company involved with the project specialized in aerial filming, which is not the same as 3D aerial photography, and would be bringing special cameras from the UK. Aerial filming is done from hot air balloons, fixed winged aircraft, and helicopters.

  I was greatly enthused by the idea of collaborating with such companies with whom we could share revenues. I discussed the idea with them and they were enthusiastic. We could also make the cameras available to Bollywood film-makers and television channels.

  The greatest nightmare was government permissions for aerial filming. We still had archaic 1937 rules which banned aerial photography. Today’s technology allows us to take high resolution pictures of a golf ball in action or the number
-plate of a vehicle on the ground using cameras mounted on a satellite. Paradoxically, all the modern passenger aircraft flying into India have cameras fitted in the underbelly that continually display the terrain they overfly and the runway, especially, is visible with fine granularity including landing lights and the texture of the tarmac.

  Aircrafts taking off anywhere in the world have to seek permission from the air traffic control and the defence ministry of the local government, and are obliged to submit flight plans to the authorities. This rule is intended to prevent spy-planes from operating in a country’s airspace. However, aerial photography in India is regulated by rules published in 1937, since then technology has been revolutionized but the old rules continue to remain in force. Aerial filming needs clearances from the ministry of civil aviation, the DGCA, and the defence ministry. One old rule and three governmental agencies make for an immense tangle of red tape. Hollywood film-makers give India the go-by and go to Thailand, Malaysia, and Sri Lanka. India loses out on a vast stream of revenue.

  The greatest challenge was to get permission from the defence ministry. The ministry said it would depute an IAF officer to accompany the filming crew on the flight and asked for the names of the crew who would fly that day, and the details of the locales they would overfly. A crew member whose name is once given cannot be replaced.

  Approvals and permissions took six months. The filming was to take place over a period of six to seven days. The helicopter’s flight path and filming locations were submitted to the ATC and the defence ministry.

  The team had two photographers and a director, and the helicopters were fitted with nose-mounted cameras. All plans had been finalized and the final day arrived. Unfortunately, a UK-based cameraman who was to join the shoot on the designated day fell ill and could not join. We informed the defence authorities and asked them to allow us to bring on board a replacement. They however adhered rigidly to the rule-book and refused to allow a replacement. The Discovery team of historians, archaeologists, scriptwriters, and series directors had been camping in India for over a month. The channel had invested thousands of dollars in extensive research, filming, ground photography, people, and resources. Aerial filming was only one part of a mammoth exercise.

  As the defence ministry remained unyielding there could be no filming on the scheduled day, for which preparations had been made over six months: all that effort went in vain. The defence authorities had lost track of the simple fact that what mattered was aerial photography and not who was in the helicopter. They said rules are rules and we said the law is an ass.

  A few months later, I shared the dais at a function with Ramakrishna Hegde, former chief minister of Karnataka who was then union commerce minister. I referred to the Discovery channel aerial filming incident and said that the bureaucracy should stop riding on our backs. It was choking initiative everywhere and throwing a spanner in all the works: be it a farmer seeking a record of his tilling rights or a city dweller awaiting a relative’s death certificate; whether someone wanted a building plan approved or a new venture licensed. I said the bureaucracy had inordinately increased procedures and the length of red tape, and this in turn had led to greater corruption. It was killing us.

  Hegde listened to my comments with great indulgence. When his turn came, he narrated his own experience of bureaucracy. A much-visited temple had provided space and a rack for devotees to remove their shoes before entering the temple. It had appointed an usher to receive the shoes, hand out tokens, and collect a fee for each pair. A foreigner who knew that Indian devotees took off their footwear before entering a temple found it convenient to leave his shoes behind in his car. He had to pass the usher’s area to enter the temple. When he passed, the usher stopped him and asked him to deposit his shoes in the designated area. The foreigner pointed to his feet and said he had no shoes on. The man at the shoe-rack pointed to the board put up by the temple administration that said, ‘Remove shoes here!’ The temple usher told the foreigner that he had to remove and keep his shoes in the specific storage area and not in the car.

  Hegde said this was how bureaucrats interpreted rules. We would have to live with that till we changed the rules, he said, to loud applause and laughter.

  Our contacts in the defence ministry helped us to get fresh clearances for the filming. The series went on to become popular and re-runs continue to be aired. Discovery paid us handsomely and gave us credits.

  Closely following the Discovery project, we got many aerial photography assignments, including one with National Geographic for their series Ten Biospheres of the World. The channel had identified the Silent Valley in the Western Ghats as an important and critical biosphere.

  I cherished the calls I received. A call meant a new customer; a new insight into human nature. One day a girl called Kaavya rang me. She was 21 or 22; no longer a teen, not yet a woman. She was very soft-spoken, very gentle, and spoke haltingly. She had seen a Deccan advertisement and she wanted to know how much a helicopter ride would cost. I said the cost would depend on flight duration and waiting time. I said a three-hour trip might cost anywhere between rupees one lakh and one and a half lakhs. She seemed disappointed but she recovered her poise and asked if it was possible to hire the helicopter just for half an hour in Coorg. I said we couldn’t do that because the helicopter had to be blocked for the whole day. Besides, somebody would have to pay for the helicopter to fly to Coorg and back.

  There was something about this young girl—woman; something puzzling. She did not disclose the reason why she wanted the helicopter. I asked some probing questions. Was she a student? Did she work somewhere? Why did she need a helicopter? How did she plan to pay for it? She told me her story. She wanted to surprise her father on his sixtieth birthday. She had been putting away her pocket money and cash presents she had received from visiting relatives and parents since she was a child. I, however, wondered how she had known all along that she wanted to give her father a helicopter ride.

  They lived in Madikeri in Coorg. When she was six or seven, one evening her father returned home in a state of great excitement and exclaimed, ‘Guess what everybody! I came home in a helicopter!’ He had run into chief minister Gundu Rao at Kushalanagar and Rao had given her father a ride in his official helicopter. Her father and Gundu Rao were school chums.

  Her father was absolutely thrilled, but once the excitement faded, he let out a sigh. That might be the only helicopter ride he would ever get to experience. ‘I don’t think I’ll live to experience this again,’ he had said. The words stuck indelibly in Kaavya’s memory. She told herself she would save money to treat her father to a second helicopter ride.

  He was close to his sixtieth birthday. She wanted to take him for a helicopter ride as a birthday gift. She seemed disappointed at the price but remained self-possessed and determined. She, said, calmly, ‘I’ll save money for another year and get back to you.’

  It was only the second time I had experienced such a depth of feeling and intensity. This girl wanted to fly to Madikeri, give her father a surprise, pick him up from there, and bring him to Bengaluru. This was a business decision that pulled at the heart-strings. It was the previous Nikaah-kind of situation. I took a decision instantly. I told the young lady how much it costs per hour and how much time it takes to fly to Madikeri and back. I said, ‘You decide your itinerary. Whether you give your father a joy ride or fly him down to Bengaluru, I will give you a 50 per cent discount on the actual fare.’ She thanked me and hung up.

  David Hooks, the well known Australian cricket commentator, called us one day to discuss an India–Australia cricket match. His fellow commentator was the cricketing master, Sunil Gavaskar. David said he wanted to hire a helicopter to show live images of the match on TV.

  He said they would equip the helicopter for aerial filming. They would be inter-leaving the vision fields of the cameras on ground and on the helicopter. I agreed to loan them the helicopter and told him our charges. David Hooks got back soon. The principl
e organizers had said they could not afford to pay such high charges but were willing to give credits if we lowered the fee.

  Sunil Gavaskar called to give us a clearer picture. He said, ‘Captain, every time the camera focuses on your helicopter, we will say thanks to Deccan Aviation.’ That would be at least a couple of crores of rupees worth of advertisement expenditure. I agreed, but insisted that they pay at least a third of the quoted amount, and also asked for camera to focus on the helicopter once every few minutes. The deal was settled.

  On the day of the match, Steve Waugh and David Hooks got on board, I joined them in the passenger cabin, and Jayanth was at the controls. People in drawing rooms across the country watched the match covered by ground cameras. They had frequent bird’s eye views of the stadium and the green vistas of Bengaluru. When these images appeared I could hear the emphatic voice of Gavaskar say, ‘And these spectacular images from the sky are thanks to Deccan Aviation!’ Then the helicopter loomed into sight with the Deccan logo clearly visible. The match organizers used the Deccan helicopter for about an hour and a half each day for three days. This exposure gave Deccan international visibility.

  Sitaram Kesri, then Congress president, was on television one day making a statement to the media. He said he was not going to take any more nonsense from Deve Gowda, the prime minister. Congress with the largest contingent of 166 MPs was propping up, Gowda, who had 16 MPs, with outside support.

  Sitaram Kesri’s utterances were an indication that the government would be brought down. There would be an election soon, and I saw there would be need for helicopters, excellent campaign vehicles.

  Our helicopter logged 25 hours of flying a month. With another helicopter, and intensive daily use, we could do six months’ worth of business in one month. I reached for my mobile phone like a cowboy who goes for his gun in westerns. I left a voice message for Doug who was holidaying in a yacht, off the coast of Malaysia, and Doug called me back in less than five minutes, alerted by a paging system. It seemed almost miraculous to be able to reach someone far out at sea in an instant at a time when India was still far removed from the cellphone era.