ALPHA TANGO BRAVO
The year was 1982.
The shiny Piper PA 38 came to a graceful halt on the apron at Ratmalana and the silver haired lady pilot waited patiently to be helped out. By the looks of things, she needed more than one helping hand to ease her out of the cramped cockpit. The two technicians who were part of the ‘welcoming’ team ultimately did the needful.
This was a grand achievement that went unheeded. On the ramp was a grand old aviatrix who flew solo from the UK to Sri Lanka with just two features to keep her company — one, her flying experience and the other a ferry tank on the right seat! But wait…I am getting ahead of myself!
Let me begin with the Sri Lanka aviation industry which by that time had hit an all-time low. The bombing of the Avro HS748 in Ratmalana in 1978 and the subsequent closure of Air Ceylon caused our aviation industry to lag way behind in comparison to our neighbours in the South Asian region.
It was around the same time that Chira Fernando who was getting ready to retire from the Sri Lanka Air Force, was renting the Cessna 206 from Upali Aviation to train a PPL candidate, Ranjith Wijewardene - cousin of Upali Wijewardene.
Osmond [Ossie] Muthunayagam Paul in the meantime was the Chief Pilot of Air Taxis Ltd, flying a Cessna 206 for Air Taxi Ltd– a charter flying company owned by Mr Tharumaratnam — a a Nigeria based Ceylonese.
One day, Chira sat in the Ratmalana airport canteen preoccupied with the thought of his ab initio student pilot having to fly the Cessna 206 — which was no picnic! It was in this ‘mise- en- scène’ that he met his ex-Air Force colleague Ossie.
What transpired during that brief encounter was a precursor to the birth of Air Taxi Ltd — Sri Lanka’s first private flying training school since the closure of the Government run Air Academy in the 1970s.
A few days later, on a rainy Sunday morning Chira received Ossie’s umpteenth phone call… persuading him that here was a chance to contribute his expertise from the Airforce training to revamp the non-existent General Aviation industry in the island.
Chira was a tad hesitant. He was a graduate of Cranwell Airforce College, he had combat experience albeit in a scanty insurgency in 1971, he had flown the entire range of flying machines that belonged to the Airforce at the time both as a fighter pilot and transport pilot, he was squadron commander in the Sri Lanka Air Force, but he had absolutely no clue about civil flying training set-ups!
Anyway, after much compromise, the Flying School of Air Taxi Ltd –was eventually born. Nobody questioned or had doubts, inside and outside the Civil Aviation industry about Air Taxis or its two legendary co-founders and their innovative leadership in flying training — barring one major obstacle. The school lacked a proper training aircraft. The Cessna 206 4R-ATA was the only available aircraft but was too heavy and complex for students and was a very expensive training option. Thus if Air Taxi were to reinvent itself in the flying training arena it was imperative to purchase a training aircraft fast.
At that moment, there was only one option left for Air Taxi — to lease the Cessna 152 from Upali Aviation to commence operations.
With a successful lease agreement with Upali Aviation Ossie hired the Cessna 152 4R-UAB and committed consistently to quality pilot training. The C206 was allocated exclusively for charter flying.
Chira who had his ear to the ground, hoping to find out about new developments in the Civil Aviation arena was one of the first to learn about the impending genesis of a new airline in Lanka. He realized that the market for pilots was expected to boom with the national carrier starting afresh as Air Lanka.
His keen understanding of the need of airlines and their dominance of disciplinary characteristics worked wonders in the new school. Although both Ossie and Chira possessed cutting edge flying training skills, their logistical support was rather primitive. It was under trying circumstances that Air Taxi became the test run for future flying training establishments in Sri Lanka.
The first student of Air Taxi was Ranjith Wijewardene who sensibly followed his Instructor from Upali Aviation. The school then roped in 5 other student pilots from a variety of corporate ranks. Not their ideal airline pilot entry type, but nevertheless a keen lot!
Some months later, Maharaja Organization bought over Air Taxi Ltd. Sadly it was also the time for Chira Fernando to leave Air Taxi. His eventual departure to join Consolidated Engineering to fly the Lake Buccaneer was subdued. Ossie was left to energize his thinking on how to rope in somebody to replace Chira. Ex Airforce Instructor Tony Wahab was hired. But Ossie continued to coax another aviation veteran — Sus Jayasekara to join him.
Capt. Susantha Wijesoma Jayasekara was a former airline pilot, officer in the Royal Ceylon Air Force Volunteer Reserve, flying instructor, and businessman. He was better known to all and sundry as ‘Captain Sus’. A soft-spoken gentleman, Sus was very popular among his fledgling pilots during the Flight Academy days at Ratmalana.
Sus agreed to collaborate.
One day just outside the Ratmalana canteen, Ossie and Sus bumped into Les Rajapaksa another ex-RCyAF pilot. The encounter was a lucky coincident. Les became Air Taxi’s point man for flying training and its most senior change agent while Sus continued his efforts to try new things and re-evaluate traditions.
Then, one day Upali Aviation alerted that they may need their C152 back.
The decision by Upali Aviation to disengage itself from the existing lease contract had a huge implication for Air Taxi; as by now they were getting to be recognized in the industry as the one and only flying training school in Lanka. In order to avoid a downward spiral, the trio — Ossie, Les and Sus approached the Maharaja management to demonstrate their “collective sense of urgency” on how to get about buying a new training aircraft.
To their utmost frustration, the manager at Air Taxi Head Office knew very little about aviation. Moreover he was suffering from a midlife crisis at the time! Rather dejected, the trio were returning to Ratmalana when suddenly Sus had an idea! Yes. They would approach the previous owner of Air Taxi — the same “Nigeria based Ceylonese”.
Eventually Air Taxi was lucky to locate a 1979 Piper PA38–112 Tomahawk, C/N 38–79A0994 which was ferry flown across to Sri Lanka by the silver haired aviatrix. The aircraft was registered as 4R-ATB. Sus was converted on ATB prior to the departure of this gifted aviatrix.
It was many months after the ‘Granny Ferry’ that I arrived at the Air Taxi hangar — or more aptly a refugee camp at Ratmalana. The repercussions of the ugly racial riots that ignited in July 1983 were disturbing. The engineers Mr Siddique and Mr Mahendraraja and Hangar assistant Cooray had managed to build some wiggle room in between the hundreds of Internally Displaced Persons.
I assisted Cooray who was very skillful in maneuvering ATB through the IDPs on to the ramp albeit the intermittent ear-splitting yelps that caused me to jump out of my skin. Mr Cooray suffered from the aftereffects of an electrical shock he had received while working as a technician at Air Ceylon. The poor man would go into a spasm and yell at the top of his voice at most unexpected times!
In her heydays, ATB was the ‘piece de resistance’ at the Ratmalana airfield — The only trainer in the sky. By the time I was introduced to her, ATB had experienced a hard landing that caused a wing twist. But, despite the distorted asymmetric approaches I had to master as a fledgling pilot, my flights on 4R-ATB were abso-fabu!
Circa 2008, out of the blue I came across some pictures of ATB on the net. The photographs indicated that she was somewhere in Budapest, Hungary, supposedly at an engineering school, probably awaiting resale.
So much history … you almost wish ATB could talk!
