BENGALURU: Wing Commander UK Pillai (retd), Executive Director (CTP RW), HAL, who participated for the last time at Aero India on February 13, advised new pilots to fly prototypes and to choose HAL as it is the place to look for new developments. Advising youngsters to learn to fly and join the forces, he said that new avenues are opening up with private industries too coming up.
After a flying career of 40 years, he hung up his boots after manoeuvring HAL’s Light Utility Helicopter on Monday in front of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Having flown for 8,000 hours and 12,000 types of flights, Wg Cdr Pillai said he has flown all the first prototypes of HAL aircraft.
“I have been flying sorties since 2004 and practice is essential before every such outing. I have participated at air shows in Paris, London, Chile, Malaysia, Turkey, Indonesia and others. Everywhere and every time, the display is different and difficult because of sorties,” he said.
He recalled the first time he flew in 1983 on the trainer aircraft Kiran, which was a HAL product. Later, he flew Chetak, Cheetah, MI-8 and MI-17. “I prefer to fly a helicopter than other types of aircraft, which are stable machines and can fly even if you take your hands off. But helicopters are unstable and you can have a pilot or autopilot. Because of this instability, the pilot has the freedom to manoeuvre and try different things,” he said.
On his most difficult flights and memorable experiences, he said it was cruising over Siachen. “As a test pilot, one has to go there and show that you can land. It was risky as anything could happen. One had a feeling what if you could not get help or come back. But I have flown the Advanced Light Helicopter in 2009, Light Combat Helicopter in 2015 and Light Utility Helicopter in 2018 to the region. In Chile in 2006, we got to know of a technical failure and it was fixed. But my team and I were still worried as we had to fly 1,500 miles down to Peru. All we were doing then was pray to God,” he said, laughing.
Wg Cdr Pillai said he does not regret anything as he could fly most aircraft before others could. Looking
at the designs of the Indian Multi Role Helicopter (IMHR) on display, he said, with a tinge of sadness, “I wanted to fly this one too, but will not be able to.”