Sreedhara Panicker Radha Krishnan Nair, commonly known as SRK Nair, is a familiar name amidst those who have served in the Indian Air Force, and those with even a passing interest in the field. With a hefty number of flying hours across a variety of aircraft, Nair is also credited with his involvement in numerous operations, feats, and flying exercises during his service, after which his interest and involvement with Indian aviation have stayed steadfast.
As Bengaluru looks forward to Aero India 2025, it is important to contextualise the event within the specifics of the city. As Nair states, “It is an event of immense importance to the country and aviation. It’s a very complex exercise which involves the Ministry of Defence, the Indian Air Force, the Army, and the Navy. There are various challenges: bringing in aircraft from all over the country and abroad, their arrival, their parking, their practices, their performances, and so on. While this is in the sky, we have an even bigger challenge on ground with the number of visitors who come to Aero India. The Yelahanka base is divided into pockets for exhibition, aircraft parking, static display, performances, and other elements.”
The scale and nature of Aero India being what they are, the amount of preparation needed to execute the event to perfection is unsurprising. “The process is very complex in nature, because of the kind of footfall we have and the number of vehicles that come in. Security remains a very major concern. In addition to standard security personnel, we have the CISF and Karnataka Police, who form rings of security around the station. This needs a lot of detailed work; that is why the preparation starts about one year back and slowly builds up towards the event,” Nair notes.
Residents of Bengaluru are privy to the city’s advancement in terms of aviation, and the infrastructural edge it has in the area over other Indian cities. To Nair, it is the prime location for an event of Aero India’s calibre. In his words, “I can’t think of any other part of India where the aviation environment is so favourable for conduct. Credit for this goes to HAL of course as a private firm which was taken over by the government; many ancillary aircraft services have come up since and spread across all over Bengaluru. In addition, we also have large Air Force establishments here.”
There are numerous feats, as aforementioned, that glitter Nair’s long career, amongst which is the famous North Pole expedition. Speaking of it, Nair, who flew an Ilyushin Il-76 for the expedition, is all praise for everyone involved and hails it as a team effort. He illustrates, “The only means of navigating to the North Pole is using the global positioning system. What we had then was a very basic GPS. I would credit my team for the thorough preparation; there are no land features, there’s no air traffic control.”
The timing of Aero India 2025 coincides with what may be deemed as a very dark period in civil aviation. As merchants and buyers from the world convene, people all around the world, including India, remain in the dark regarding a host of recent air accidents, with their trust in the safest form of transport wavered. Nair reiterates the statistical safety of air transport being superior over other forms, as one of the reasons why every accident makes headlines. As to the possible causes, to him, entropy is the most plausible. “With the density of air traffic increasing, the chances of things going wrong increase,” he says.