The fascination of flight is truly amazing. Ever since I was a child I remember looking out the window every time a helicopter buzz was heard or an airplane flew by. It was fascinating, almost charming, to be transported to into a fantastical land, to see something fly, soaring above my head. Flight has amused many, it has definitely been a phenomenon that has instilled a sense of deviant rationalized madness that very few are able to conjure up the sanity to handle.
I still remember my mother taking me to see the Cmdr. Vijaypat Singhania’s DC-3, a shiny silver beauty, sat in a beautiful garden, pointing towards the sky. It was a beautiful time, the few seconds you could see the aircraft, peeking through the rickshaw, surrounded by rose bushes and trees all around. I also remember seeing the HAL Hf-24 Marut, an aircraft that was built by Hindustan Aeronautics Limited.
The above photo was clicked by my mother, at the HAL museum in Bangalore. Standing on the other side of the photo is my cousin, Namit Madhbhavi, now a Industrial Engineer studying at Arizona State University.
My fascination with aircraft has been a long one. It has been one of the only things that has remained constant, throughout my childhood, my teens and now – early and late adulthood. I often wonder though, about what lies beyond this. Aerospace is a very niche field of study, it is not a study of a wide variety of principles and phenomenon like mechanical engineering, nor is it hyperspecialized like Microbiology and it’s various specializations. But, nonetheless, it is a field that has it’s niche and of course its limited viability in the real world. But, there is more to it than that. Somehow, aerospace is something of a rite of passage. It is in itself a phenomenon that lifted men into a new era of holding destiny in their own hands. It is, in a way a story of rebirth and entropy, a story that is based on the kinetics of things than the stagnation of thought to intrigue minds. Flight in its very nature an act of defiance and breaking free.
As days pass by, I am often anxious about what lies ahead. Especially as I hope to transfer to a better institution for aerospace and aeronautics. I often wonder about how it will go, if I will get into a school that I would like, if I can work on aircrafts and technologies that interest me, and in pursuit of innocent honesty: are the colors of the school good? (I’m looking at you UIUC and UMich, please get new colors)
Dumb jokes aside, its been a long time coming, at least for my mom if not anybody else; my decision to actually dive headfirst into senseless passion that is aerospace. Considering that I have talked, worked, made and thought only about aircraft and nothing much else in the last couple of decades with her or for that matter most other people.
It’s a long way ahead, its a commitment to fruitless dumb ideas like nothing else before, and most probably nothing else after, at least in my life.
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