A reunion at 40,000ft. Capt. Gihan Fernando (L) and Capt. Elmo Jayawardene. (Picture taken by a “Singapore Girl”)

A few days ago, I was looking through some books and I came a cross a dusty old copy of "A Gift of Wings" by Richard Bach, given to me by my friend Elmo. Inside it said "To Gihan in remembrance of our biplane days when we flew Tiger Moths in RMA with such limited horizons and such strong bonds of friendship created in our world of aviation."

It took my mind back to our flying school days in Ratmalana (RMA) thirty eight years ago. In those days, RMA was less busy as all the commercial jet traffic operated from the Bandaranaike International Airport (BIA). Once the domestic aircraft like the Air Ceylon Dakota (DC3), the Avro 748 and the Nord 262 left for their respective destinations, in the morning, the trainee pilots had the airfield to themselves, till the arrival of the Indian Airlines, Vickers Viscount or till some Royal Ceylon Air Force (RCyAF) VIP flight arrived. Then everyone was grounded till that aircraft left. Most of us took off and landed on the patch of grass between the parking apron and the runway. They told us that it was to save the tires. I remembered how Elmo and I took off on a cross-country flight one misty March morning from Ratmalana, in a HAL Pushpak aircraft to Ratnapura , Beruwela  and back. The Pushpak was an Indian built, two seater aircraft, powered by a reliable Rolls Royce Continental 90 HP engine. It was one out of two or three training aircraft that were serviceable in the Government Flying Training School at Ratmalana. Mr. V. V. Giri, the then Indian President had gifted this aircraft to the ‘youth of Ceylon’.

Soon, with the sun in our eyes we flew East towards our first destination Ratnapura. Elmo was flying while I was the Passenger/Observer and Navigator. The first checkpoint on the map was Ingiriya and then we pressed on, on our flight - planned track. Elmo was working with Air Ceylon and I was a recent school leaver. We were both clocking flying hours to be Commercial Pilots. Between us we had less than two hundred hours of flying experience under our belts. Although this experience was less than a drop in the ocean where airline flying was concerned, in our minds we were ‘aces’ who had sole control over a flying machine that roared on at a record - breaking speed of 60 Knots! (Roughly 70 MPH). We were the lords of the air and had freedom of the skies. None of our aircraft were equipped with radio. Air Traffic Control clearance was obtained from the Control Tower, by telephone before the proposed flight!

The city of Ratnapura was in a valley beyond a range of hills, which we had to cross before we flew overhead our turning point on this triangular cross-country. On this day however, it was decided that we would not fly directly overhead but turn short and head towards Beruwela to carry out some "real flying!" By "real flying" what was meant was flying at "deck level" which is along the beach, sometimes even below the level of the coconut trees.

Let me hasten to add that "Low flying" was an exercise that was taught to us by our Instructors lest someone attempts it incorrectly and kills himself. The unofficial low flying area was the Bolgoda Lake. But officially the instructions were; "Don’t fly low because if you do, soon you will be harping in the high altitudes." Sometimes, we had to carry out cross-country flights to far away places like Kankesanturai, Jaffna (KKS). On the return leg, since we were not radio equipped, we had to descend to an extremely low altitude (below the tree tops), after passing Puttalam and follow the coastline. This was to enable us to fly under the approach path of the "Big Jets" landing at the BIA. The high point in that operation was the attempt to fly our little aircraft between the Pegasus Reef Hotel and an old shipwreck, along the coastline. Since one was low flying all the way from Puttalam, the adrenaline was already in the system and it was a "piece of cake".

So it was somewhat usual for us ‘Aces" to hone our low flying skills on the Beruwela to Ratmalana leg.      

A few minutes after turning towards the coast, something made me ask Elmo what he will do if he has an engine failure. This question was usual because whenever a single engine aircraft pilot flew he was supposed to have a plan of action in the event of engine failure. Back at Ratmalana, we even practiced this by making every landing a power off (idle throttle) landing. What was unusual was the timing of the question. Because as soon as I asked this from my friend Elmo, there was a big bang and the engine wound down from a regular cruising power of 2100rpm to about 1200rpm. Even with the throttle fully forward we could achieve only about 1700 rpm, which was not enough to keep our aircraft flying straight and level. So we had to make a gradual descent.

Elmo, being the pilot in command, promptly took matters to hand and decided that we could not make it to RMA and therefore should make it in the shortest distance to the coast before we ran out of altitude. My job was to look out for suitable fields to land the aircraft in a greater emergency such as a total engine failure! The engine was vibrating significantly with a loud banging noise. There was a smell of high Octane fuel in the cockpit. However, the engine oil pressure and temperature were observed to be normal. Above this unholy din I could hear Elmo shout in Sinhala  "Orasang kiyapan machang, Orasang kiyapang!" (Say your prayers machang , say your prayers!)

A few days before this eventful day, Rohan, another Trainee Pilot and I were doing a preflight engine run up and observed heavy misfiring of the engine. On investigation we found that the plug leads from the Magneto/Distributor had been misconnected. In addition to that one set of leads was not even connected! (For redundancy, every cylinder head of the RR C 90 engine had two spark plugs and therefore two plug leads.) After an investigation, the mechanic who did the daily inspection (DI), was issued with a severe warning to be more careful in future. Most of us suspected that this poor guy taking the fall for an act of deliberate sabotage. A few months before, the Flying School boys had organized themselves into a Trainee Commercial Pilots Association (TCPA) because of certain irregularities taking place in the school. The year before they even went on strike. The management resented this. A few of us, being the organizers of the association, were targeted by them for ‘rocking the boat.’ They were an autocratic bunch anyway! I remember the Chief Maintenance Engineer those days was known as ‘Engine Caesar’ (pun intended!).  

With the above background in mind it was quite obvious to me that the engine problem may be due to the ignition system. But smell of fuel was a mystery. We moved from one potential emergency landing field to another and eventually worked our way to the coast. The most logical place to land was the beach. Now we were down to two or three thousand feet. There were Fair Weather Cumulus clouds around. To get to the coast in the shortest possible distance I remember Elmo flying through a puff of cloud. Just as we cleared this cloud, right in front of our nose was an airfield! It was Katukurunda the disused World War II airfield which was used as a week-end racing track. Quick, no time to lose "Let’s land there." Now we had excess height. So we carried out the standard Forced Landing Procedure to Katukurunda. After losing height we approached from the West. On the final approach we could see a few cars on the runway! I think they were from a driving school nearby. When we got closer they got out of our way. As soon as we were safely beyond the runway threshold and sure of making a landing, I shut the engine down after, concurring with Elmo and the propeller came to a dead stop.

The resulting silence was eerie. The idea of shutting down the engine quickly was to prevent any chance of fire in the engine. Because of the strong smell of fuel it was suspected that unburned fumes were leaking from the engine. We didn’t want to run the engine longer than absolutely necessary.

As we came to a stop on the runway, we could see some people from the vehicles in the vicinity approaching the aircraft. Perhaps noticing the stopped propeller. In a matter of minutes we had a curious crowd around the aircraft. One of the drivers even offered us a screwdriver to open up the engine cowl to have a look.

We had to politely tell him that we were not allowed to do that but instead had to wait for the FTS Authorities to come and rectify the situation. Leaving me to control the crowd Elmo commandeered a bicycle and rider who gave him a ride on his bar to the Nagoda Hospital, to inform the FTS Authorities.

Within two hours ‘Engine Caesar’, a Mechanic and the Deputy Commandant of the FTS were at the site. When they opened up the engine cowl they found that two spark plugs had come adrift and were hanging on the leads while another was loose. The conclusion was that someone had not tightened the spark plugs properly or had deliberately kept them loose! Hopefully an inquiry would be done later. For the present they tightened all the plugs. Elmo and I then walked along the runway in the direction of our proposed take off path and cleared it of all stones and coconut husks etc.(to the best of our ability). In a while we were airborne and heading towards RMA. Needless to say, I was imagining all kinds of engine noises on our way back. Within the hour, we were safely parked by the FTS hangar.

If I remember right, we ended up at the ‘Midway House’ for a quick beer before walking up the Airport Road under the midday sun. ‘Midway House’ was what everyone called the Airport Club. Although March 1971 had an unusually high number of incidents culminating in a fatal crash at the airport, no official inquiry was held regarding the maintenance standards of the FTS. By April 1971 the country was in turmoil with the advent of insurgency and the FTS had to be temporarily closed. All these incidents were swept under the carpet.  

Our "horizons" certainly did widen when we flew as First Officers (Co pilots) with Air Ceylon and Air Lanka. Elmo and I briefly shared the same flight deck for a few hours in a Boeing 707 during training back in 1979. After that it took another 27 long years for us to fly together again. It was in 2006 that we found ourselves again in the Flight Deck of a Singapore Airlines (SIA) Boeing 747-400 aircraft. Elmo being a Line Instructor on the Boeing, had to supervise and train me from Singapore to Melbourne. It was truly a reunion at forty thousand feet!

Elmo is retiring from SIA, after a brilliant career there, to come back to Sri Lanka, thus reversing the usual trend, creating a "brain gain", to give some of his knowledge and experience back to "aviation" in Sri Lanka. 

Good luck my friend. As you retire, may you enjoy good times, good friends, good memories. For all you’ve done, for all you are, you’re wished the very best.