Aero India 2013, Bangalore- A TRIP TO REMEMBER!

- By Athira Rajiv

So, one fine day a mail pops in by Sandeep (who himself din’t come with us sadly) asking us to plan a trip for the one of its kind Air show in India, the Aero India fest 2013 at Bangalore. Some, initial responses and then it seemed a dream far from reality. But then, an awesome batch we are, we did it, kudos to the enthu max Arjun and Harish!! 

 

So after lots of convincing and cribbing, finally 13 people are ready… High on adrenaline at 2 am in night, all are ready to jump in the mini bus. The bus starts heading to the destination, Bangalore.. And no one is in mood to sleep… The movie “Munnabhai MBBS” is put up and all laugh like anything.. And then the night (read early morning) takes its toll and all fall asleep (except the people who got pained by the driver at every toll booth: Gosh! How many tolls they have!! ). 

Someone wakes up and sees we are heading on a wonderful road with some hills that can be seen around. And then everyone wakes up to the breathtaking beauty of the morning sun hidden behind those hills. So we stop at some place to get fresh and some fresh air. Next up is the dosa’s and idli’s from Tiffs (dunno whose idea it was to get them packed! But thanks! ). Songs are put up, thanx to the collection by Kauts (no 1 thanked him till now I guess), and after sometime the singer within us comes into play. All sing their lungs out, and the dance in the bus! That was chaotic.. 

Meanwhile, we reach the outskirts of the city and the Bangalore veteran Harish is busy finding out ways to reach the Yelahanka air base avoiding peak traffic, after picking up 2 more people from Bangalore. So, we park our bus somewhere and are waiting for our PJ guru, name not needed I guess :P. And, lo a traffic police guy comes. It was his 1^st pick of the day I guess.. 50 bucks and he is settled. :P. If not for the bribing system, we would have been stuck there for God knows how long! 

So after all this we finally reach the place.. Stuck in crawling traffic, we go crazy seeing aircrafts maneuvering from the bus itself. And how long could we control, we figure out that getting down from the bus and walking is faster than the bus crawling. We managed to get tickets pretty soon thanks to PP and Harish for standing in the queue for all.. And then we head to the display area. 

Idiots as we were, we first went to the most useless halls of all which only had stalls of some arbit companies putting fundaes on what they do. Though our PC’s din’t miss a chance to put in their email ID’s at each of the counters for interns and placement! Anyway, after wasting lots of time in this useless hall, we realize there are way more awesome things to see. So, we take lunch (it was 2 already and all were starved) and before we could go to see any other ground display halls, the most awaited thing had begun!! The AIR SHOW! 

That was a breathtaking experience! A Russian aerobatics team with their 4 Sukhoi’s leaving flares in the sky, beating head on collision with supreme accuracy and wonderful maneuvers. And then another Sukhoi goes so high up that it became invisible. And then the amazing synchronized maneuvers of 4 planes from the Redbull team (the pilot of one of which was apparently a 60 year old lady!) That was one helluva sight!! 

So, there we are standing in the scorching sun, watching the skies, catching each and every thrilling action. And IITians as were are, our "nerd"ness could just not be avoided. There was some discussion on the type of air intake for the engines, on the location of horizontal stabilizer, the vortices formed in the smoke trail,  till someone realized it was weird and people were turning and looking at us!. After about 2 hours of sheer awesomeness, the air show came to an end. We start running to the display halls to get a glimpse of everything before the halls close..and yeah we actually ran! Stalls by all the aerospace companies in the world! You name it, and they are there!

But this was not the end, we take our bus (there was epic confusion created for the driver by telling him not less than 3 gate numbers to come pick us up :D) and head to the Bangalore host Harish’s home… What a hospitality to so many people. Respect man! Needless to say, home food is what we all pine for, so we get this awesome dinner have some chit chat with his wonderful parents and then it’s time to leave the wonderful city.

So, we are in the bus, on our way back to Chennai, its 11pm, all are tired, sleep deprived, legs paining badly, and someone gives a crazy idea of watching a movie - ‘Arrow’ ! No one denies to it. But anyway no one saw it more than first 30 minutes may be :P (BTW it’s a wonderful movie on how technology and politics are interrelated, a MUST watch). And, then I don’t remember anything. All I remember is I wake up to find the bus is already in insti. The end had come..

So, anyway it was an awesome trip, how could it not be? Wherever 15 people of the batch get together, it has to be awesome! The experience was once in a lifetime (at least for now) for many of us. Looking forward to more such legen…wait for it…dary trips full of awesomeness…
Love you guys.. we rock!!