“Take the bird up to 10,000 feet before you try any stunts with her,” the Late Air Chief Marshal Hrushikesh Moolgavkar told Flying Officer Tejas Kawale at his Koregaon Park residence in Pune on a warm day in June 2011.
Almost seventy years separated Moolgavkar, then almost 91, from the young 21-year-old budding fighter pilot. But the Second World War veteran patiently explained the nuances of flying the controversial MIG-21 fighter jet to the young man.
Tejas had recently been awarded the ‘Sword of Honour’ at the Indian Air Force academy, prompting me to fix a meeting for him with one of India’s greatest fighter pilots ever. Both Tejas and I were received very warmly at the Moolgavkar residence. The war hero congratulated Tejas on his recent achievement and then proceeded to enthusiastically explain the nuances of flying fighter jets to him.
It was almost like Bheesma from the Mahabharata explaining battle strategy to a young Abhimanyu. “Remember the basic parameters of speeds that are prescribed in your pilot’s manual. Get all doubts about the aircraft you are flying cleared by your seniors. It is always prudent to try out variations only after you have attained a height of 10,000 feet. The higher you fly, the safer you are in a supersonic jet,” Moolgavkar told the young Tejas who furiously took down notes.
When pressed by Tejas to speak about his Mahavir Chakra-winning effort in the Kashmir operations of 1948, Moolgavkar instead spoke of how he had almost unwittingly managed to touch the speed of sound while taking a Tempest II in a steep 20,000 feet dive. “I felt the entire aircraft shudder. Upon landing I noticed that the wings of the aircraft were wrinkled. My discussions with senior pilots made me realise that I had almost touched the speed of sound. I was advised not to try this out on a Tempest again!” Moolgavkar told Tejas before gifting him a copy of his biography ‘Leading from the cockpit’.
Always a shy and reticent man, it was not surprising that Moolgavkar did not want a biography written on him. In the course of an interview, he told me, “I studied at the Malvern College in England, where they taught us to be humble and modest. Hence I was not comfortable with the idea of talking about myself.”
Moolgavkar finally relented after his daughter Jyoti pointed out that it was important to document his career for the benefit of future Indian Air Force pilots. Jyoti said, “This is why the entire book is focused only on Papa’s flying career and nothing else.”
The biography is a treasure trove. It contains 200 rare pictures from Moolgavkar’s albums and gives one a glimpse into India’s Air Force history. It also carries excerpts from Moolgavkar’s flying log books. A total of 1,100 hardbound copies of the biography were published.
To say that Moolgavkar has had an exciting career would be an understatement. Just sample these facts. While fighting the World War II in Burma (now Myanmar), Moolgavkar crash landed a Spitfire fighter aircraft on the beach injuring his vertebrae badly. It is another matter, that he himself flew a plane from Cox’s Bazaar (now in Bangladesh) to Kolkata in that injured state. Following surgery and rehabilitation, Moolgavkar was flying once again very soon.
Post the war, a glorious career enfolded for Moolgavkar with the Indian Air Force. He had the opportunity to lead the very first fly-past in New Delhi on the occasion of the country’s first Independence Day, as also the first fly-past of Republic Day.
In the 1948 Kashmir operations, Moolgavkar earned a Mahavir Chakra for successfully leading a squadron of Tempests which succeeded in neutralising the Pakistani army. All this and more has been documented in Moolgavkar’s book.
In his three-decade-long retired life in Pune, the Air Chief, who is the only Indian fighter pilot who has flown as many as 67 different types of aircraft, followed the progress of the Indian fighter pilots very closely. I remember having tea with him one evening when he suddenly remembered the exploits of the Indian fighter pilots in a recent joint exercise with the American, UK and French Air Force over American skies. “It is not easy to fly our Sukhoi jets across the seven seas with mid-air refuelling. Our boys achieved this feat successfully and I am very proud of them,” Moolgavkar had said.
I met him last on his 94th birthday on August 14, 2014 at his Koregaon Park home. Ever the gracious host, he first ordered tea and cake for me and my photographer colleague before settling down to what was a very memorable discussion.
(Much of the above first appeared under the author’s byline in the Pune edition of the DNA newspaper. Rahul Chandawarkar’s People normally appears every other Monday)
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