Wings On Fire...
Me and my classmates at VGSOM went to an air force base station yesterday - occasion – an off from the college – Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose’s birth anniversary and Saraswati Puja.
The class trip was a courtesy of the Indian Air Force officers in our class. The Kalaikunda base station where we went is one of the largest in the Eastern Indian region. It sure was an out of the world experience - to see the daily life of the IAF officers first hand.
Well lemme begin with the most impressive of the lot first -
The MIGs’ flying practice sessions - :) ...
The MIGs taking off one after the other and disappearing into oblivion - the Mirage taking off almost vertically into the air ...and the ATC guiding them back to the ground... all in perfect synchronization and with the required precision...
It was all breath taking... power and precicion - in tandem!
The best of the lot were the almost vertical take offs of the MIRAGE 2000 – as soon as the tyres lifted from the ground the plane took off into the air at a very steep angle – almost vertical! It was a treat to the eyes and infact for us it was a TRIPLE TREAT – we saw 3 take offs one after the other!
Wings on Fire was the only thing that came to my mind after seeing these....
Then there were the static displays (models put out to display) of various MIGs and Mirages an rescue chopper. Now ladder was put upto the cockpit of one of the MIG 27 n one could see the controls in a mig cockpit - believe me one gets staggered- there were about a 100 controls in a small cockpit of size of about your chair seating space. But the best part was sitting in a fighter chopper and operating the controls ...obviously it was jus a dummy control and we were still on the ground, but the rudders etc moved and we had the view and the feel of being inside a chopper – now who gets to that daily?
We also saw the ammunition for the various fighter planes lined up in front of us!!!
From the smallest of the bullet bombers to practice missiles to the big missiles, various sizes and payloads..whoa! It was a little overwhelming to see them there and to know that they were not jus dummies but live bombs!
Then was the turn of the servicing station for these huge giants..... ( oh by the way, each of these fighter plane costs around Rs.200 Crores and each sottee ( that’s a flight take off and landing) - consumes about 1100 liters of fuel and 5 lakh of rupees!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)).
In the servicing station we saw these MIGs all opened up with each of their component being checked and serviced if required - the uncountable number of controls in d cockpit and the function. Some other control systems that we could see from the outside -the radar detection equipment, the mechanism to hide from the radar detectors of the enemy, the laser mechanism used to lock on the missile to its target, the hydraulic system of the (which was infact designed by an 8th class Russian student, and was the most complex in the world).Then there was the whole engine opened up – separated from its shell and buoy it had everything in the world in it in the small space available – its was a piece of engineering! A wing control mechanism – an air conditioning unit – a bombing mechanism – an altitude gauging system – an air pressure gauging system – and obviously a cockpit panel data providing system, a hydraulic system, and an ejection mechanism for the pilot, are to name a few of what an engine had.
The service or the part checking generally happens after 50 hours or 100 hours or 200 hours of flying – as per the specification of that particular plane model.
All this display was accompanied with numerous questions from our end, which were answered by the Air Force Officers - very patiently and repeatedly and they themselves took pains to explain all the systems and activities etc to us.
It was an awesome experience.
The unforgettable experience was topped by a scrumptious, lip smacking lunch at the Officers Mess. We being the hostel students you can imagine - how much we liked it ;) ..
Well on the return journey- inspired by the fighter plane histrionics – we too manufactured quite a few of our own – ahem the difference - that they were of paper – but hey we succeeded in bombing the sleepy classmates and waking them up from their slumber!!!!
So that was about it .......... a great outing and a memorable experience!
Lemme see if I can get hold of a few pictures that were taken.
Trip on -23rd January 2007
nish
The class trip was a courtesy of the Indian Air Force officers in our class. The Kalaikunda base station where we went is one of the largest in the Eastern Indian region. It sure was an out of the world experience - to see the daily life of the IAF officers first hand.
Well lemme begin with the most impressive of the lot first -
The MIGs’ flying practice sessions - :) ...
The MIGs taking off one after the other and disappearing into oblivion - the Mirage taking off almost vertically into the air ...and the ATC guiding them back to the ground... all in perfect synchronization and with the required precision...
It was all breath taking... power and precicion - in tandem!
The best of the lot were the almost vertical take offs of the MIRAGE 2000 – as soon as the tyres lifted from the ground the plane took off into the air at a very steep angle – almost vertical! It was a treat to the eyes and infact for us it was a TRIPLE TREAT – we saw 3 take offs one after the other!
Wings on Fire was the only thing that came to my mind after seeing these....
Then there were the static displays (models put out to display) of various MIGs and Mirages an rescue chopper. Now ladder was put upto the cockpit of one of the MIG 27 n one could see the controls in a mig cockpit - believe me one gets staggered- there were about a 100 controls in a small cockpit of size of about your chair seating space. But the best part was sitting in a fighter chopper and operating the controls ...obviously it was jus a dummy control and we were still on the ground, but the rudders etc moved and we had the view and the feel of being inside a chopper – now who gets to that daily?
We also saw the ammunition for the various fighter planes lined up in front of us!!!
From the smallest of the bullet bombers to practice missiles to the big missiles, various sizes and payloads..whoa! It was a little overwhelming to see them there and to know that they were not jus dummies but live bombs!
Then was the turn of the servicing station for these huge giants..... ( oh by the way, each of these fighter plane costs around Rs.200 Crores and each sottee ( that’s a flight take off and landing) - consumes about 1100 liters of fuel and 5 lakh of rupees!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)).
In the servicing station we saw these MIGs all opened up with each of their component being checked and serviced if required - the uncountable number of controls in d cockpit and the function. Some other control systems that we could see from the outside -the radar detection equipment, the mechanism to hide from the radar detectors of the enemy, the laser mechanism used to lock on the missile to its target, the hydraulic system of the (which was infact designed by an 8th class Russian student, and was the most complex in the world).Then there was the whole engine opened up – separated from its shell and buoy it had everything in the world in it in the small space available – its was a piece of engineering! A wing control mechanism – an air conditioning unit – a bombing mechanism – an altitude gauging system – an air pressure gauging system – and obviously a cockpit panel data providing system, a hydraulic system, and an ejection mechanism for the pilot, are to name a few of what an engine had.
The service or the part checking generally happens after 50 hours or 100 hours or 200 hours of flying – as per the specification of that particular plane model.
All this display was accompanied with numerous questions from our end, which were answered by the Air Force Officers - very patiently and repeatedly and they themselves took pains to explain all the systems and activities etc to us.
It was an awesome experience.
The unforgettable experience was topped by a scrumptious, lip smacking lunch at the Officers Mess. We being the hostel students you can imagine - how much we liked it ;) ..
Well on the return journey- inspired by the fighter plane histrionics – we too manufactured quite a few of our own – ahem the difference - that they were of paper – but hey we succeeded in bombing the sleepy classmates and waking them up from their slumber!!!!
So that was about it .......... a great outing and a memorable experience!
Lemme see if I can get hold of a few pictures that were taken.
Trip on -23rd January 2007
nish
posted by Kanishka at 12:53 PM
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