Aero India 2017: UK pilots moved by Indian generosity

Bengaluru: The pilots who fly the Yakovlevs, have enthralled air show audiences across the world for as long as they have been flying the single-seat Yak-50 Russian warbirds, and the two-seat Yak 'Super' 52 - supercharged and specially lightened.  

As they head home after Aero India 2017 wraps up here at Yelahanka air base, the most enduring memory that the UK-based team of nine pilots drawn from Ireland, UK, Ukraine, Belgium and France will take away with them isn't just the sharing of trouble spots and conditions to look out for during the air show by the 'Suryakiran' aerobatics team, whom they describe as " warm, friendly and forthcoming."

Yakovlevs founder and team leader Jez Hopkinson says the far more heart-warming story will be of the Indians who helped him and other pilots when they arrived in the early hours of February 4 at Kempe Gowda International Airport and found themselves stranded. No cash because demonetisation had them carrying old currency. And no transport because their hotel had forgotten to pick them up!

 Mahesh Thammaiah, a staffer at a five-star hotel, and a complete stranger and his colleagues found them rooms at another hotel and gave them Rs 120 for the toll and even found them a friendly cab driver to take them into the city.  "If it hadn't been for Mahesh...," said Hopkinson, adding " If this had happened to us at London Heathrow, we would have been stranded. Nobody would have helped us."

Display pilots include current F-35 JSF Test Pilots, ex Red Arrows display pilots, national aerobatic champions and air display examiners. The Yakovlevzs display team is headquartered in Somerset, U.K. at Henstridge Airfield, housed in purpose built, state-of-the-art facilities.