Before my first flight, Everything started with Aero India 20 years ago. 

I was a little kid who was fascinated by the roar of Mirage and Sukhoi 30. Just standing in awe thousands of feet below on ground, seeing it’s dance in air without covering the ear made me feel like a hero. The free posters that u get in the Aero show is the most priced possession and those airplane pins that u can stick on shirts are the proudest ornament that I loved to wear but at the same time I was afraid to wear one as I was worried that I might loose while playing! My mind was always battling with these two thoughts and obviously the later won Everytime and I never wore them outside. I used to visit my grandma’s house every summer holidays and I used to pass via Mekri Circle. There is a huge advt board with few planes flying in sky, even today there is one. My little heart would always salute to those planes in silence and dream of flying one some day! My aunt always used to tease me that I don’t have to study many years to become pilot and it was so easy to feel proud of myself when I was young. All it took was someone or my teacher asking me, what do I want to become when I become old? Just standing tall on tiny feet and announce that I want to become pilot is all I need to feel proud. The mere thought of this was enough brighten up my day.

It was during those days thanks to my Maama who was working in HAL then. He took me, mom, my cousin and aunt to Jakkur airfield one day to fly for the first time. My first flight was on the Chetak helicopter. I was quite nervous and super excited at the same time. They put noise cancelling headphones which was huge in size and since I was super psyched about that Helicopter more than my cousin. I got the front seat next to the PILOT! OMG! moment in my life. Only flashes of the experience I remember what I felt that day. I remember it was so so noisy and windy that they hold me tight when I was boarding the flight. Then all the super hi-tech control stuffs that only I saw in TV was in front of my eyes, many colorful lights blinking here and there made it AWESOME. Next was the take off, it took off and made a small round on Jakkur and what was so exciting was Pilot drove the copter backwards at one point that was super exciting thrilling experience and everything that appeared big so far in life are all tiny tiny during that 10–15min magical moment. This was my first flight experience. Thanks to Airytails all memories got revived. 

– Akash Nidhi, #firstflight