In the year 1930, a three-seater, single-engine aeroplane, the de Havilland Puss Moth, took off from Drigh Road in Karachi. The pilot, a twenty-six-year-old man, flew at about ninety miles an hour ‘without a radio, without landing aids, without instruments, except an altimeter and a speedometer,’ and landed the flight to safety at Bombay’s Juhu aerodrome. From there, he continued to Madras. It was the first flight in the history of Indian aviation.
The young pilot, Jehangir Ratanji Dadabhoy Tata (JRD Tata) – ‘Jeh’ to his friends and L ‘Egyptian to his French teacher – was fascinated with the art of flying. Inspired by the legendary Louis Bleriot, the first person to fly a plane across the English Channel in 1909, the young JRD made a promise to himself that he would one day be a pilot.
After two decades, on 10 February 1929, he became the first person to have obtained the ‘A’ flying license issued in India. As the First Annual Report of the Bombay Flying Club, published in Private Flying magazine states:
To the Bombay Flying Club, Ltd., belongs the honour of having taught the pupil who obtained the first “A” license issued in India, namely Mr Jehangir Tata, who passed the necessary tests on February 10, 1929.
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