Kannada in Bengaluru

I was in for a pleasant surprise on my trip to India. In the space of one year, it seems like corporate India in general has discovered Kannada and Kannadigas.

Let me explain. Until 2003 when I left India, I heard no Kannada on the FM stations. I saw no Kannada on advertising hoardings that sold mobile phone plans, and no Kannadigas in the English newspapers. A call to a mobile phone number that was switched off would result in the nice lady telling me the same in English and Hindi. No one spoke Kannada in ICICI, Citibank or Pizza Corner. People who frequented MG Road were all non-Kannadigas. Obviously I saw no sign of Kannada anywhere on shop signs in the Cantonment/East Bangalore. Bengaluru was still Bangalore. Global companies selling anything from cars to computers ignored local markets outside of Bangalore and made no effort to tap them.

Last year there were noises of Bangalore becoming Bengaluru. But I still saw no other signs of Kannada anywhere else in the city.

This year was a huge surprise. Most people I overheard talking on MG Road spoke Kannada. Every shop sign had Kannada on it. FM Radio stations seemed like they were always playing Kannada music with Kannadiga RJs. Small town Karnataka was being marketed to in Kannada by the Toyotas, Reliances and Airtels of the world. I even saw a Kingfisher Airlines hoarding in Kannada! A visit to my old employer where I could name all Kannadigas out of about a 1000 back in 2003 revealed that at least 60% were Kannadigas now. My uncle who still works there now and my old colleagues confirmed that, and also the fact that many senior managers were also Kannadigas. I heard nothing but Kannada songs playing in Planet M! On Brigade Road! The store employees all knew Kannada and were knowledgeable about old Kannada film music and bhavageetes. My family rented a car from Avis which I picked up at the Oberoi on MG Road. I expected the employees there to speak Tamil as all service sector jobs seemed to be locked up by Tamilians. Besides, the place is next to Halasooru. They were all Kannadigas. And the Tamilian who checked the car out knew Kannada! I about had a fit.

What is going on? Where is the Bengaluru that I love to hate? My single biggest complaint with the city was that I couldn't make do with Kannada everywhere. I have no option but to hate it less now.

How did this happen? Is this a result of some of the anger among Kannadigas, most expressed by the likes of Karnataka Rakshana Vedike? Or is it that an aberration has righted itself naturally?

Government Flying Training School

The GFTS in Jakkur airfield is quite old. However, it has been active for only a fraction of its age. It is the Government FTS.

The school is not short of resources. It has a reasonably large fleet, its own airfield (Jakkur airfield and the school are owned by the state government), a hangar and 33 staff excluding the instructors to take care of the airplanes.

I had a chance to walk around the hangar and talk to a maintenance technician called Reddy.

The GFTS hangar had 7 airplanes 5 of which were airworthy. The inventory as I could see it
1 Cessna 172
2 Cessna 152 Aerobats (one of them made by Reims)
2 HAL Pushpaks
1 Aeronca Chief
1 NAL Hansa

One of the Pushpaks (the Pushpak is based on the Chief) and the Aeronca Chief were "condemned" according to Reddy, presumably for parts for the airworthy Pushpak (VT-DYF). The condemned Pushpak (VT-EHZ) was apparently the prototype built by HAL which they donated to the school.


This airworthy Pushpak was powered by a Rolls Royce engine!

I had read a lot about the NAL Hansa and this was the first time I saw one in person.
It looks strange and the wing looks downright weird. It had tiny vertical stabilizers sticking up from the middle of the surface. The cowling is all metal (heavy at that) and the wings are composite. The engine is apparently a Rotax though there are other examples flying with Lycomings and Continentals. The cockpit looked roomy when I peeked under the cover. Reddy recommended that I not fly in this plane if I had the opportunity. This plane made its debut flight almost a decade ago and has yet to see production. NAL, has tried to win customers by giving them away to flying clubs across the country. No one wants to buy them.

All aircraft were well maintained from what I could see except for the pigeon droppings. I asked about ADs and service bulletins and Reddy said every single one of them have been complied with.

So who flies these airplanes? Nobody. The school does not have a single instructor, and without an instructor, they can't even rent them out. The last instructor resigned and left more than a year ago (probably to an airline - there is a huge shortage of pilots in India), and the government has been looking for a new one ever since with very generous pay (Reddy said they were offering Rs.150K per month). That's equivalent to a $150K per annum salary here in the US (not in direct conversion but in the kind of lifestyle it can support). No one is biting because the airlines pay extra generously.

So what do the 33 maintenance staff do? They come in every day, check oil and fluids, run up the engines once in a while, and generally shoot the breeze. All of them have also become so familiar with the airplanes that Reddy claimed he could tell the Rolls Royce from the Lycoming from the Continental, and which magneto was on which (he listed out a few makes of which I could recognize only Bendix) and which one was weak all only by sound. If something was misfiring, he could tell which cylinder, and which plug from a few seconds of listening. I'm not surprised. What else do they have to do?

It is really a sad state of affairs. CFIs here in the US make minimum pay partly because there are so many of them. I am surprised no US based school has opened Indian operations in a big way. Students from India come here to learn flying. Reddy himself had sent his son to New Zealand to get his CFI (for microlights) ticket and he was going to open a school himself on his own private field! He is going to target mainly the leisure flyers. But there is still a huge demand among people who want to fly for a living.

If I had money and time to get my CFII quickly, I would do it and go apply for that job at the GFTS!

Flying in Bengaluru

I just returned from a trip to India. This was my first trip back home since I got my PP and was very keen on flying there. I knew of Bangalore Aerosports when I lived in India. They offer flight training in the X-Air microlight which is made in Bengaluru. They had recently moved to Mysuru. Since the renovation of the Mandakalli airport (VOMY) was in full swing, they had temporarily moved back to Bengaluru's Jakkur airfield (VOJK). I emailed them and set up some time to fly with one of their instructors.

I showed up at Jakkur just after 8am on Tuesday Oct.3oth. I used to be a frequent visitor to the airfield when I flew RC. However, I was struck by the absence of traffic, conditioned as I was to Salinas (KSNS) and other airports near here (like Watsonville and Hollister). There is one paved runway and an associated taxiway. The rest of the airfield is really just a field with no paved ramp. The hangars are lined up to the west of the field and airplanes taxi around on the dirt which is well compacted. It had just rained continuously for the last few days, but the field was pretty well drained.

I drove past a Cessna Caravan owned by Jindal Steel and which is normally based at Toranagal near Bellary as I entered the field.

I went up to the Jupiter Aviation hangar which is where the X-Air was temporarily hangared. I could see a Beechcraft King Air and a Partenavia P68C inside.
The most intriguing aircraft however was in the back of the hangar. It was a very sleek looking red experimental which I could not identify. I asked one of the guys working on the King Air about it and he said it was built right there in Bengaluru.
It was apparently a good flier and was currently grounded because of some problem with the landing gear after a hard landing. I went over to take a closer look and the engine surprised me. The cowling said "Turbo Diesel" so I asked the same maintenance guy what it was. It was a Tata Sumo engine! Talk about extreme car engine conversions! From what I could gather, it was a one-off conversion. The airplane also had an opening near the tail (seen in the pic) through which I could see a hydraulic pump and pipes emanating from it. I couldn't quite figure out what it was for.

In front of the hangar was a Bell helicopter that belonged to VSL Industries owned by the Lad brothers of Bellary. They are also MLAs and all the big politicians of the state are frequently seen in that helicopter. As I was waiting for my ride, some big-shot and his family came up in a Mercedes Benz, hopped into the chopper and the pilot took off. One of the lineguys asked me not to take pictures of the chopper or the people in it.

At about this time, Vineeta who was going to be my instructor taxied up to the hangar after a flight. I had seen the X-Air before but this was the first time I had a close look at it. All fabric surfaces on a tube frame. The "fuselage" has a fiberglass nose and plexiglass windows. It is powered by a Jabiru (I was told 100HP) engine.
Vineeta gave me a brief overview of the systems and we got in. I sat in the right seat because the only toe-brakes were on the left. The instrument panel had a standard six-pack but not in the standard place because of the shape and available area on the panel. A center stick took care of the aileron and elevator controls.

Start up was straightforward. We taxied to runway 27. The airplane is very sensitive to rudder inputs on the ground because the nose wheel and the main wheels are so close together. I had a hard time keeping it straight for the first minute or so.

The throttle was set up so that even small movements in the stick (between the seats) resulted in large RPM changes which I didn't like. It was difficult to make smooth power inputs. Full power and a couple hundred feet later, we were airborne. I was impressed by this especially since the airfield elevation is a little over 3000'.

Jakkur has the Yelahanka Air Force Station just to its north and the HAL Airport (Bengaluru International) to the south so its airspace is rather restricted to 1000' AGL. Climbing beyond it required clearance from either the approach for VOBG or the Yelahanka tower so we stuck to 1000' AGL. As an aside, the new Bengaluru International Airport coming up in Devanahalli is further north of Yelahanka so that would make four airports in the city from north to south. Five including the one inside the IISc campus.

We flew around for some time while I tried some turns. Compared to the LSA that I usually fly, control response is very sluggish, in fact more sluggish than the Cessna 172. The aircraft trims well, but it never gave the feeling of positive control by the seat of my pants. Maybe it takes more experience in the type. It takes barely any rudder input for coordinated turns and maintaining altitude is a breeze.

It was a hazy day with an overcast layer at about 1500' AGL.
I turned back to fly over the airfield once before entering a right pattern.
Apparently pattern entries normally are done on the upwind leg which I thought was weird. But then there is hardly any traffic here. Jakkur does have a tower (more like a "permanent" temporary tower) but it opened at 9am, just when we were landing.

Approach speed is about 90 Kmph but I was too high on the first attempt. We went around. I let Vineeta take charge on the second attempt but forgot about that just as we were about to roundout. Vineeta had to yell for me to let go of the stick. Slightly embarassing! The landing was smooth and uneventful and the roll out very short. We taxied to the Government Flying Training School (GFTS) and shut down.

I was thrilled that I finally got to fly in my hometown. Apart from the actual flying, I saw quite a few interesting aircraft including a few Zodiacs in the NCC hangar. I then walked over to the GFTS which is a whole another story in itself.