Drama over the Karakurams

Sac

I am sorry to hear about your friend. That is a tragedy one sees often enough in any Air Force.

In fact your final drill story reminds me of another incident related to me by an officer who switched from Logisitcs to Navigation. A certain rather well known (and well hated) Air Marshal had ordered a flying drill in which they were supposed to fly AN 32s at 3000 feet at night time...and get this..the flight was from Gorakhpur to Jamnagar (Gulf of Kachh, Gujarat) Luckily, no crashes but a lot of sweaty palms.

Fuzair: The most wilds I was exposed too was the charming hill town of Mussoorie in the Sivalik range which are the foothills before the actual Himalaya range starts. Small town, great school and enough wildlife and rambling in the Khuds to keep an 8 year old happy.

fuzair,

Yes, this has brought back a lot of good memories. You were extremely lucky to make it as far as the khunjerab. Landslides wreaked havoc with many of our excursions.

You Alouette remark reminded me of a very dear friend of mine(stuka, you might enjoy this one too!) who transferred from the Corps. of Engrs to Aviation. He went to the US in the late 80s to ferry back the Cobras. I think they trained in the Mojave desert with a bunch of pilots from various countries. The final drills involved flying as low as possible at night time on the assigned trail. My friend came in second....behind an Israeli pilot who allegedly flew only 10 inches above the ground!

Sadly my friend died in an air crash in Siachen a couple of years later. At least he died with his boots on.

later
-sac

Sac,

This brings back many memories, mostly good/happy ones, about my time in Gilgit; including having my jeep get stuck in a slide when the mud started flowing again and having to be winched/towed out by an obliging FWO tractor, driving a jeep across some really exciting looking bridges and stupidly trying to see how far I could run at Khunjerab Pass (about 20 yards before collapsing!). We spent some time up at Kalam Darchi (KD) fort, then the home of the Army`s Mountain Warfare School, and marvelling at the intrepidity and courage of the long gone Gora Saabs who built it in the 1920s, three weeks walk from Gilgit! We were going to try going up to Mintaka Pass but discretion got the better part of stupidity.

Stuka:

Sorry to bore you and sorry also that your experience in the ``wilds`` weren`t as fun as ours!

I was in Air Force station Gorakhpur (Indo-Nepal border) in 1977-78. I wasn`t close to Polo grounds but I used to see Canberras and Dakotas flying there. Oh yeah, that was also the year I saw Sanjay Gandhi and Indira Gandhi for the first time. Their juloos passed in front of our house. We were staying in civil area at the time waiting for house to be available on the base itself. That was the year they lost power.

I know it is a complete digression from the article itself but I thought it would add color to the discussion.

re fuzair #45:

I was there in the summers of 77-78. Our house was a couple of blocks from the polo grounds. And I can very well undertand your reluctance to take part in the festivities :)

Naltar was definitely a gem. It had skiing and Markhors. I think they are near extinction now. We had to stay in the aptly named survival school for a couple of days because of landslides. I wonder how much things have changed since then.

later
-sac

NHK #41: ``No. This is Shahid Javaid. He is an Air adviser in Qatar these days.``

Would this be the same guy who was the first Pakistani F-16 pilot.

``I did not know that Shahid Zulifqar was into politics these days.``

I think he is now one of the key members of Imran Khan`s PTI.

re: #43

Yes, saw quite a few polo matches at the Aga Khan Polo Grounds in Gilgit, even knocked the ball about a couple of times on the NLI ponies but you couldn`t pay me to take part in one of their matches, though!

We went up to Naltar a few times (by road and hitched a ride in a heli a couple of times as well) and that is a scarily spectacular drive! Whats even scarier is when the Alouette pilot gets down to about 20 feet above tree level and roars down the valley with his nose down! The Naltar area is absolutely stunning and does indeed look just like Switzerland. Some of the cottages the Brits built there also look a bit like Swiss chalets; and the cherries are excellent. The PAF really does itself well up there; I think they have their winter survival school there IIRC. There is a little ski slope they have there as well but never tried the skiing.

I was there in 1990-91 (been there a couple of times before and after that but for short vists). When were you there?

Regards.

Ref rahul_capri #40

[I just came to know it is a book ;on an impulse I looked it up on the Internet. Seems interesting to me.]

Yes, it is. And it has been a best selling book in England and has crossed the Atlantic over to the US.

[P.S. I know I came off as a pedant. I hope I was not disrespectful.]

Not at all. It just gave me the opportunity to post that joke about the panda!

re fuzair #37,

I was not even in my teens at the time, so many earthly delights escaped my attention! I do remember meat being a rarity. Trout was plentiful though and so were pomegranates. Naltar and Hunza were gorgeous but the food left a lot to be desired and electricity was a luxury. Did you get to watch the polo games in Gilgit?

later
-sac

nazarhayatkhan #41

He has joined Tehreek e Insaf of Imran Khan.

Banjara # 39

No. This is Shahid Javaid. He is an Air adviser in Qatar these days.

I did not know that Shahid Zulifqar was into politics these days.

Harimou #31
I just came to know it is a book ;on an impulse I looked it up on the Internet. Seems interesting to me.
P.S. I know I came off as a pedant. I hope I was not disrespectful.

NazarHayatKhan.
Nice narration. Would Shahid be AM Shahid Zulfiqar, who retired a couple of years ago and is now a budding(?) politician?

aslam #35 no disrespect, but you were obviously sleeping in class when your english teacher was discussing when to put commas.

But seriously, you make a very good point. This article is written in clear, simple words and therefore the reader`s attention is focussed on the story itself.

veeresh: i agree with aslam and hope you will take aslam`s advice for your next episode. I found myself skipping over your lengthy prologues which I couldnt relate to the subject anyway. There was some very interesting material in your write-ups, but it tended to get smothered under excess verbiage.

As our famous muslim scholar Sheikh Pir wrote: Brevity is the Soul of Wit. (And I admit to forgetting Sheikh sahib`s advice myself).

Re: Sac #10

Did you ever try the Kashgari Pilau at the Kashgar Inn in Gilgit? Excellent although I would always ask for mine ``baghair ghost`` (was cheaper that way but that wasn`t why I asked for it like that; the meat used to be truly bad in Gilgit). Mantus were also excellent. If you were the tippling type you could also get pretty good Chinese brandy for a very reasonable price.

Aslam644 # 35, Yogiraj # 33, Asad_k # 32

Thanx. Folks. An encouragement always helps.

Veeresh # 30

French & American fighters use Pounds as measure of fuel and the Chinese use Litres.
The Civil Commercial aircraft use KGs and tons.

nazar hayat khan

i throughly enjoyed reading this article, i am sure the plain english campaign in Britain would have been proud of this article. no disrespect to veeresh but his writing is so complicated sometimes i struggle to make sense of it, may be he thinks in punjabi/hindi and writes in english. i am sure my english teacher would have had a field day with his english.

Ref: Romair

I have always wondered what is wrong with this person who not-so-seldom submit rather good quality posts.

Finally, I have got the answer. Here comes my expert psychoanalysis.

Romair is basically not as an idiot as many people over here seem to believe. On the contrary, I would assert, he is quite a good person at heart but suffers of severe guilty consciousness. And in order to soothe his spiritual qualms he keeps on chanting his classical mantra of poor salaries in the forces and his enormous success in the Silicon Valley.

Let me elaborate.

He joined PAF after his matriculation at the age of 16-17. Pakistan, despite being one of the poorest countries on the face of earth provided him every conceivable facility and luxury. Imagine, at the age of 16-17 when millions of his age fellows were roaming around without any prospect for future he was given 400 – 500 PRs as pocket money to start with (in early 80s) only to study. He was provided with free mess, world-class education free of cost, extremely good medical care – gratis, batman when he was just a shity cadet. Even every sort of dressing was given to him without charging him and his family anything. On top of all this, very decent sports facilities, guaranteed job after graduation.

Gradually, he graduated with a degree in avionics. One day he “realised” that oh, see [very few] people in the civil with compatible academic qualifications are getting more than what he received at the end of month. Which might not be full truth – but that’s another story. He started panga-bazi, got released from the forces, moved to the US. With some luck succeeded in making a few bucks.

Now, he knows very well that there are not many very plausible justifications for his code of conduct. He knows very well that he got every possible out of that poor country and left it the very moment he got a better chance. He feels guilty. Somewhere deep inside him someone keeps on reminding him that Mr, aapis kee baat hai, you are a selfish $ucker.

Now he needs something to get rid of those disturbing thoughts. To do that he keeps on chanting that military officers are not well paid. Their civilian counterparts are better off. He is a super genius – his enormous successes are a proof that Pakistan was too small, too backward for him.

Take his whining out and think for a while what reasons there are for his betrayal. Keep in mind he joined PAF well aware of their salary packages. He exploited it in every conceivable manner. Left it when he could stand on his feet.

I remember watching an American film where to a general betrayal was a far worse crime than a rape. So friends, it is romair’s betrayal that makes him keep on submitting all that nonsense. If he doesn’t do that, he has to admit that he is a namak-haram a$$hole. Not an easy job to confess that.

Nazar Khan.

Salute.

That was as Majestic as Majid.

You have so much in you.

Let it blow out. More and more.

Please.

Yogiraj

Bravo, Bravo! Keeping your previous articles in mind, have you any plans of publishing this sort of collection of memoirs? they`re like a breath of fresh air in the turgid, obnoxiously politicized halls of Chowk.. I`m sure that everyone here, at least, would give good word of mouth!

Ref rahul_capri #19

[Now,I will be a dick and mention one thing to look out for-semicolons have not been used properly in some places(such errors of commision are worse than errors of ommission ). ]

Have you been reading ``Eats, Shoots & Leaves`` by any chance?

Anyway, here comes the story.

A panda walks into a cafe. He orders a sandwich, eats it, then draws a gun and fires two shots in the air.

``Why?`` asks the confused waiter, as the panda makes towards the exit. The panda produces a badly punctuated wildlife manual and tosses it over his shoulder.

``I am a panda,`` he says, at the door. ``Look it up.``

The waiter turns to the relevant entry and, sure enough, finds an explanation.

``Panda. Large black-and-white bear-like mammal, native to China, Eats, shoots and leaves.``

Thank you Sir, I really enjoyed the article and have passsed it on to friends and family here who are / were flyers.

````Just an hour and a half flight from Pakistan, beyond the high mountains, there existed a completely different world. ````

Much the same as we in India feel about Pakistan and vice-versa I guess, except that the natural geographical differences aren`t there.

Many of us in India forget that the flying distance from Delhi to Allahabad is about the same as to Lhasa.

Did you ever find out what caused the leak? Was it a gallon/litre miscalculation?

Dost-Mitter # 27

(Why didn`t you share some with us when we were together? :-)

HA.HA.HA. We had so much else to talk about. Then Sargodha & Jhelum was on our mind.

Soysauce # 18

The Chinese are good people even without a God. They have no distraction of a religion.

Atif1 # 17

Commercial flying is just about the easiest way of making good money while being on a perpetual holiday - provided you are the out-going type. Air Force flying is more machoistic and suites the guys who love sports and are more into aggression.

Rahul_Capri # 19

I agree with your observation of excessive semicolons. The text could have been improved with some more editing.

Arjun_m # 20

During the peak of the cultural revolution, it was essential for every Chinese to carry the Mao`s Red Book with its snippets of wisdom. The Chinese have sacrificed a lot in terms of personal liberties and freedoms to reach the position that they are in now.

SameerJB # 21

Sinkiang was then quite a backward province. Even now the Western China needs to catch up with its Eastern part. Uramqui was the nearest airfield from where these aircraft were brought and parked to be ferried across. I have been to Urmaqui some 8 years back on PIA. Now it must have progressed.

The local Uighers could understand the Turkish of Ankara area or about where normally our officers went on exchange postings.

Ijaz_Gul # 23

You have actually traversed and felt these mountains. I have only seen them. They are awesome. Once the Swiss Council General in Karach told me that we consider mountains to be useless objects whereas the Swiss have made a full use of them economically. There was an exhibition in Karachi on Swiss mountains.

twintopaz # 22

thanx.

nazar bhai:

You have some wonderful tales to tell and you tell them wonderfully! Why didn`t you share some with us when we were together? :-)

``the Russians were called the Revisionists because they had deviated from the pristine principles of Communism``

...look who is revisionist now?

Freethinker # 8

Murphy`s Law - If something can go wron, it will go wrong.

Temporal # 9

Should be packing up bags for Pakistan!


Sac # 10

Yes. The Silk rout got many lives during construction. The Chinese have been really good to us although we did not heed some of their good advice.

Tehmed32 # 11

The Chinese are humble people with a great old civilization.

Romair # 12

Yes. Military gets you see most of the odd places inside Pakistan. I saw more places outside Pakistan when out of Air Force. I do have good memories of early days - but later there was some degeneration.

Malik 99 # 14

The constant engine drone soon becomes a part of the silence. Only other sounds attract your attention.

Stuka, Urstruly, Rozaiba, Nikki , Rakaposhi, Ahmed Iftikhar, Izzah, Kabuliwallah

Thanx folks. It is justy getting out of the system as observed & felt.

Nazar, You are an effective writer. The fact that you don`t review keeps the originality intact. I am reminded of Richard Bach and his novels on flight. I read one on christmas eve when I could not make it home. Terrefic! I am sure you must have also read Johnnaten Livingston Seagull.

The artical also brings back memories of getting stuck in the death zone of K2 above the Abruzzi Ridge. Efcourse thats a story for another day.

Well Done!!
Cheerios

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I really enjoyed reading this article. I have heard that things have considerably changed in Xinjiang (Sinkiang) since the days of Mao. The lower Sinkiang near Pakistani border is still very rural and Kashgar still a dusty old town but up north in Uighur region, Urumchi (or Urmqui) has undergone tremendous improvement and modernization. Urmuqui has modern sky rises in the down-town, good restaurants, night-out places, modern airport with few international flights landing and all what is expected from a modern city.

Few years back, my flight from Islamabad to Zurich was delayed and took off in the early morning hours. It headed right over the Chitral region and then Pamir mountains. The view from PIA airbus with early morning bright sun shining over Pamirs was breath taking. They look so majestic and so close to the airplane due to their height.

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I rather enjoyed your description of the chinese. So matter of fact with not a tinge of judgement. Bravo!

Nazar, a very good write. It was almost as if the story was telling itself.That is the hallmark of effective writing,when the writer disappears from between the written word and the reader.Also, one more thing that impressed me was the use of dialogues-this is not often seen in articles and stories published in chowk. Dialogues give a touch of authenticity to the narrative.
Now,I will be a dick and mention one thing to look out for-semicolons have not been used properly in some places(such errors of commision are worse than errors of ommission ).

mazaa aa gaya...bravo

Nazar Sahib - very nicely written. Although I had a bit of trouble imagining ``pin drop silence`` while having ``constant drone of the engines``.

Good job. And indeed I would be interested in knowing the cause of the oil leak.

- Rakaposhi means ``Shinning Wall``. In local language, it is also called Dumani or ``Mother of Mist``

- Nanga Parbat means ``Naked Mountain``

Nice writeup; very interesting. My Mamoo and Chacha, both in Artillery interestingly enough, went to China for a long (4 months? not sure of the length) conversion course to various Chinese artillery pieces and they also have similary stories to tell about Chinese hospitality. According to my Mamoo, the only way to tell a Chinese officer apart from an OR was by the number of pockets on his tunic: ORs had four and officers only two. Absolutely no other rank insignia at all.

BTW, am curious about two things. I thought that the Uighurs in Sinkiang would have spoken Eastern Turki which is not really mutually intelligible with Osmanli Turkish. Are you sure that some of you could have conversed with the locals? Also, I`ve heard from some PAF acquaintances of long past that the F-6/Mig-19 handled about as well as a brick with wings and especially at lower altitudes handled like a brick without wings. But these were Mirage pilots who lusted after the F-16; maybe they were biased. You seem to suggest differently in your writeup. What is your opinion of the F-6?

Regards.

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Very interesting.

If I remember correctly a few pilots have actually crashed in the mountains, doing exactly what you did, i.e. ferrying aircraft from China. I know of at least one officer, who crashed, while bringing back A-5 aircraft, I think. We were told that his body was found and his face had a beard, meaning he had ejected, and survived for a few days.

The ejection seats on Chinese aircraft never work. You probably know that better than I. PAF puts in British ejection seats into the airplanes, after quite a few people have been killed. The ejection seats end up costing the same price as the airplanes. So its a good thing you did not have to eject. The seat probably would not have worked.

Its funny, everyone who goes to China to get aircraft, always mentions the soup, and how watery it is.

P.S. I have to so your generation really got to see the, ``good days`` of the military. China, Turkey and God knows where else. None of my group had similar opportunities. Judging by your experiences, you should look back at all these memories, fondly.....As a friend who is a chopper pilot in the Army in Skardu, says, ``The pay and locations maybe bad etc. etc. but how many people in the world get a chance to daily get the views of K-2 that I get.`` How true.....

You are lucky man, you should look at your military career with a more positive attitude......Thousands of people write software, write books on democracy and philosophy, travel a world as businessmen (like me), or in airlines (like you do now), but how many get a chance to handle a fuel leak at 35k over K-2? That, to me, is living a real life. Not flying 737s nor living in midtown USA working 9-5.

nazar sahib:

Very enjoyable article. I remember taking the Fokker flight to Gilgit many a time to visit my father who was posted on the Karakoram highway. Rakaposhi is a majestic sight indeed. PIA also had the ``Safari`` flights a while ago that went through those mountains. I guess they had to be discontinued because they become ``safarshi`` flights.

I vividly remember Chinese workers collected in a group, eating dried melon seeds which were heaped in the middle of the road! I believe the highway claimed over 10000 casualties, mostly Chinese.

later
-sac

Beautifully written, and I thoroughly enjoyed reading it. Also learnt a few things - e.g. where Rakapo$h got her name (from a mountain peak!! what is that supposed to mean?? and why was I so ignorant as to have never heard of this peak before?).

Also found some of the chinese names interesting: The aptly named Mao Tai (``death comes`` in urdu) drink, and Mr Hu who spells his name as Mr Nu (Why is that? Why not Mr. Gnu, while he was being creative coming up with a confusing spelling).

nazar:

held my attention till the end...good job

rgds

t

Very well narrated event. Thanks for sharing.

A beautifully narrated, suspenseful article. Was there actually a leak in the fuel tank? Or what? Not that it mattered after your safe and successful landing. But it`s good to know how such a defect remained undetected before the take off. Then again, if this was detected and fixed before take off, there wouldn`t be this story to tell.

Mohammad Gill

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agree with Stuka here. I felt I was the auto pilot in there with you....


PS: any tips how to overcome fear of flying. ( no that fuel leak incident didn`t help ) :)

Thanks for sharing your experiences on Chowk.

NHK:

This was an enjoyable piece. Really liked it. Both your description of how the relationship evolved with the Chinese and the dramatics of the fuel leak!

Cheers!

Very well written. very vivid imagery. Thanks for sharing with us.

Nazar Hayat Khan:

What a wonderful breathtaking article. I could alsmost visualize you sitting in the majesty of sunlight, snow light and rarified air above the Himalayas. It was a breathtaking description and somehow more uplifting the the descriptio of flying big passenger planes. The cultural background on China was excellent as well.

Keep it coming. And with your experiences, the pleasure of buying you driks will be all mine at your next visit.