There is a significant rise in the number of low cost carriers and reports suggest that India is expected to become the largest aviation market by 2030 but there is still a large section for whom air travel is part of the bucket list. It is beautifully captured in a film called Havai Dada, where a grandfather is nursing a dream of flying in an aircraft and his grand daughter wants to fulfil it. Anupam Kher told us that he was driven by his father’s fascination for air travel. “And when he did, he was excited like a child. He told me, Anupam there comes a time when the plane stops in the sky.” Well, Bahadur Chand Gupta, 58, provides a similar experience in Delhi’s Dwarka. The difference is his plane never takes off. A retired Indian Airlines (IA) flight engineer, Gupta is the proud owner of an Airbus A300. He has spent years restoring and maintaining the craft’s glory so that children and elders could get a feel of a plane for as cheap as Rs.50, without any hidden costs.
“I belong to a small village in Haryana and was the only engineer from my village. When I joined the IA people from my village wanted to see the aircraft from close quarters but due to security reasons that was impossible. That day I thought I should have something outside the security region and this project came into being,” explains Gupta. The chance came in 2003, when Gupta purchased a decommissioned aircraft and established Centre for Civil Aviation Training along with his wife Nirmal Jindal.
Bringing the aircraft to Dwarka was a challenge. “This is a huge aircraft with dimensions of 170 feet by 170 feet and weighing 80 tonnes. The roads leading to this place are very narrow with several wires running overhead. It was a difficult task and to overcome it the aircraft was dismantled into numerous pieces. From chairs to engine, everything was removed and was reassembled here under my supervision.”
30/09/15 Diksha Awasthi/The Hindu
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“I belong to a small village in Haryana and was the only engineer from my village. When I joined the IA people from my village wanted to see the aircraft from close quarters but due to security reasons that was impossible. That day I thought I should have something outside the security region and this project came into being,” explains Gupta. The chance came in 2003, when Gupta purchased a decommissioned aircraft and established Centre for Civil Aviation Training along with his wife Nirmal Jindal.
Bringing the aircraft to Dwarka was a challenge. “This is a huge aircraft with dimensions of 170 feet by 170 feet and weighing 80 tonnes. The roads leading to this place are very narrow with several wires running overhead. It was a difficult task and to overcome it the aircraft was dismantled into numerous pieces. From chairs to engine, everything was removed and was reassembled here under my supervision.”
30/09/15 Diksha Awasthi/The Hindu
