Katspeakeasy: August 2020

Life was oh so cool that time! I was flying Mi-17 helicopters with the Siachen Tigers in good ol’ Bari. With air maintenance tasks nearly over for the month, the only thing to do was pick teeth after a gigantic breakfast. So that very innocuous task to “Just, sling that darn engine out of a rice field”, was welcome.

Little did I know!

Sometime earlier in that November of 2003, a MiG 21 trainer aircraft on downwind at Bagdogra had flamed out. Making sure that the aircraft would crash in an uninhabited area, both pilots ejected safely. Some superb reflexes and high-quality training apart, thank God for that!

The Court of Inquiry blamed the HAL serviced engine. Something that the HAL suits fiercely disagreed. They asked for a strip examination of the engine at Koraput (I think). Now, the R-3 engine weighs one and a half tons. It was sunk in a flooded rice field. No crane could go into that slush to pick it up. The station offered to drag it over the 30 odd metres to the road. The suits agreed only too readily. Luckily, the Presiding Officer smelt a rat. Digging into earlier files, he found out that this was an oft used ploy. After testing, the suits would argue that the engine was damaged by the dragging. The test would be inconclusive and the HAL would be home and free.

The Cheetah Commanding Officer (CO) at Baghdogra suggested that he could fly over to the site, hover and sling the engine out. A quick call to the Command and they said, "Sure thing". When he attempted to sling it out, he was in for a rude shock. The darn engine was too close to the trees and electrical wires. A few game attempts and he gave up wisely.

And that’s how this ~~shitload~~ sortie landed up on our plate.

Our crew composition was good. While I held an A MG, I was pretty new to the east. So to compensate, there was my Co Joe, a rustic Jat lad with bags of experience in the Eastern Air Force. His hands could make a helicopter dance. Co Joe loved to talk and in a language peppered with delightful and quaint swear words with that typical harsh accent. The Flight Engineer was a fearless Bong. Psycho and I had served together in Kargil. He thought nothing of crawling onto the saddle of a Mi-17, with the ROTORS ROTATING! Finally, as Flight Gunner, I had an experienced Sergeant. The Glacier, deserts, the East, Toughie had operated everywhere.

We had a small powwow. Let’s plan wheels-roll at sunrise, I said. Ferry to Baghdogra and do a ground recce the same evening. Fly the under-slung sortie the next day. Wrap it up and dash back home for the weekend. That’s when the CO’s orderly came to me. In that typical mysterious way with that typical horrible sinister smile, something all CO’s Orderlies get trained in a special course in some secret darn place, he told me that the old man had enquired if I may be inclined to find the time to see him.

Inclined? Find the time? ~~Fucking~~, when the CO calls, you ~~fucking~~ hop, run and jump, and all at the same time.

Now our CO was an all-knowing, benevolent, and battle-hardened decorated old warhorse. He’d been everywhere and done everything. He asked me about my plan. I laid it out straight and simple. He smiled and asked, “Would you like to take another Gunner, one of those rookies?” I bobbed my head and said that it was the most brilliant piece of advice anyone had ever received, including the verses of the Holy Book. Deep inside I thought, damn, why another guy?

I realized the value of this piece of advice later on.

Co Joe made sure we got to Baghdogra uneventfully. We saw land the odd time en route to Guwahati. We even managed to avoid rain in some places. All pretty humdrum for the place and time of the year.

The station was all geared up. The Chief Operations Officer was a Jalebi Jock. A nice guy, but pretty sceptical since he had seen the Cheetah’s failed attempt. The Station Flight Safety Officer was a mud crawler, like us. He briefed us and then suggested a ground recce.

We went in a Gypsy and saw the place and damn, reality hit us. The engine was lying on the edge of a flooded field, surrounded by trees and squeezed tighter than a rat’s ar*e by wires. I sat down on the nearby road, dumbstruck. Co Joe too for once is silent when Psycho Bong says, “I think it can be done”. I raise my eyebrows. Toughie adds, “Yeah we could make an approach from the side and do a real high hover. I’ll then talk you down”. Rookie chips in with, “Sure thing, I can crawl to that place and hook up the sling when you get down.” Psycho then says, “Could be just a little tight, but it’s a doable thing”.

Co Joe now finds his voice and says, “BC, G may danda dalwaney ka shauk hain to phir mota patla kya dekhna”. There is no way that I can accurately translate this piece of typical Haryanavi philosophy. It means that if you love to shove a stick up your ar*e, why worry about the thickness. I nodded furiously and squeezed out a, “Yeah, that’s the Josh, guys”.

It was dark by the time we got back. Downed the customary two large, ate the standard scramble eggs with Paruts (that’s the cool way to describe parathas). The air conditioning in the rooms was noisy but effective. We fought back with lusty snoring for those eight hours of beauty sleep. The next day we chatted some more about the sortie seriously, very very seriously. Then we got airborne.

A picture, they say is worth a thousand words. The word count is now exactly that. Let these ten pictures talk.