“The admirable aviator”

A memorable tribute has been paid to a remarkable personality — Air Marshal Aspy Merwan Engineer ("The admirable aviator,” In Memoriam, Parsiana, September 2002).

We all know that the Tatas had started the civil aviation service in India. They once thought of constructing an aerodrome at Panch­gani’s tableland or plateau but had to abandon the proposal mainly because of the gravitational pull.

However Engineer, then hardly out of his teens, dared to fly all the way from Karachi to Ahmedabad to Bombay and then over the Western Ghats, with all their pre-monsoon air currents and thermals, to land his little biplane, a single engine Gipsy Moth, on the very same tableland (4,378 ft above sea level) with no navigational aids on the way and the "airfield” was Parsi High School’s cricket-cum-hockey field.

Engineer: dared to fly

It was said that the entire Parsi High School and the population of little Panchgani had turned out to welcome him. There was a hand-held movie camera to record the boy-pilot being garlanded.

The youth-pilot had won the Aga Khan prize of £ 500 beating competitors like J. R. D. Tata. It was stated that like a true sportsman, Tata helped that youth with a set of spare spark-plugs when their planes crossed at Alexandria.

I had joined this same Parsi High School (much later renamed Billimoria High School) Panchgani, as a boarder in 1935 when I was nine years old. I then came to know of the exploits of this Parsi boy who was once a boarder in the School, but very much senior to me.

He has made our community proud. Let us hope that the Government of India, in appreciation of his services will issue a commemorative postal stamp and his plane or a replica will find a prominent place in an aviation museum.

BHIKHAJI M. ADENWALLA