Take off isn’t far away

The voice on Sahil Pershad’s headphone is pucca professional: “Landmark 1123 is cleared to Orly airport as filed. Fly runway heading, climb and maintain flight level 270. Departure frequency is 119.725. Squawk 5517.” This is in response to the flight plan he filed with Heathrow clearance delivery as a pilot.

Soon Sahil tunes in the automatic terminal information service.

He gets the weather update.

Armed with initial clearances, Sahil’s Boeing 737 is pushed back.

The engines are started, the aircraft passes through assigned taxiways to reach the holding point of the active runway. A little later, the aircraft is racing down the runway.

Sahil notes the V1 speed—the decision point to abort take-off—and, after completing a few technical procedures, begins retracting flaps in stages before activating the auto- pilot and auto-throttle to unburden himself.

So what? Well, Sahil is not a pilot.

Relax! He just flies in the virtual world where pilots exist; passengers are only an assumption.

Aviation enthusiasts across the world fulfil their desire to get wings through virtual flying. India has been a late starter in the domain— here it is still at a very early stage to be called a trend.

Microsoft flight simulator software, easily available in video games stores, is what is required to get initiated into the virtual world of aviation. But it is only the beginning of a journey that invariably gets driven by the desire to get as close to real as possible.

Not many know it better than Vybhava Srinivasan. The Bangalorean chartered accountant’s girlfriend, now his wife, gifted him simulation software seeing his interest in aviation. Today, more than seven years later, Vybhava, who works in PricewaterhouseCoopers, has built at home a Boeing 737 NG (next-generation) cockpit.

It’s a complex mix of hardware and software he accumulated over a period of time. The 737 has an advanced instrument panel, yoke, throttle quadrant, multi-functional displays, auto-pilot and autothrottle panels and even original pilot’s seats—old Boeing 727 seats made available to him by a friend in Indonesia, but for a price.

The process took more than two years—and left a hole in his pocket.

Yet, for Vybhava, flight simulation is more than a hobby today. From being a “pilot”, he has grown into managing the affairs of global virtual aviation community. He is a director of International Virtual Aviation Organisation (IVEO), a Belgium based non-profit group that provides infrastructure to fliers through a network of 16 servers across the world including one in India. Vybhava is also executive VP (administration) of mycockpit.

org, the world’s largest home cockpit building community.

IVEO is one of the biggest communities of online fliers, rivalled only by Virtual Air Traffic Simulation Network (Vatsim). “If IVEO is European, Vatsim is American,” says Vybhava, lamenting that the two networks have only minimal presence in India despite the huge world-wide popularity.

Deepan Mehta of Mumbai, who represents Vatsim India (vatind.

net) and also runs Air India Virtual— it’s an online airline that has nothing to do with original Air India—notes the simulation is a medium through which flying experience can be taken to another level. “There is a lack of awareness in India about the whole thing and both Vatsim and IVEO keep a low profile.” Through their vast infrastructure, virtual pilots get connected to a global network and their flight operations are guided by virtual air traffic controllers.

“The ATC operations are highly technical and require good amount of training,” adds Deepan.

Vybhava notes that a chunk of India’s virtual fliers are either teenagers or above 45. “The age in between is the phase when people are busy in their careers.” Even among teenagers, not many come forward to take up flight simulation as this does not give instant thrills of a normal video game. “No kills here, no scores either. One enjoys it only after going through basic skills of flying,” notes Vybhava. On their part, flight simulator enthusiasts detest it being called a video game.

“This is much more than a game,” avers Shashank H R, an engineering student from Bangalore, also an aviation enthusiast.

Shashank’s big moment came earlier this year at Bangalore’s air show Aero India where he beat 3,000 flight simulator enthusiasts in a contest. As a price, he got the chance to fly in a Gripen fighter jet. “Except the Gs that I pulled and the experience of the speed, there was nothing different than what I had already been doing on simulator,” says Shashank.

He is now developing an addon software of India’s homemade supersonic jet light combat aircraft, or Tejas. He has already developed Bangalore’s IAF base Yelahanka and through these add-ons, one would be able to fly Tejas in a simulator. “These will be available for free.” The global virtual aviation community meets every year in November for Flight Simulator weekend at the Netherlands’ Lelystad (which has a virtual aviation museum), but the Indian presence here is negligible.

Sahil, a Delhi-ite who was handling the Iveo affairs before Vybhava took over, says Indian sector has come alive only a few years ago when the traffic on Amritsar-Srinagar- Kargil route went up significantly.

“It became a challenge to handle 90 to 100 aircraft at Kargil’s small airfield. The terrain posed an additional challenge.” The busiest sectors in virtual aviation are Frankfurt to Amsterdam or Heathrow-Paris-Frankfurt.

Not much different world from the real world. India has only a handful of flight simulator enthusiasts operating on global scales.

These are the people who are ready to go to any extent to create a real world scenario. A fashion photographer from Mumbai and his friends have even bought a junked Boeing 747. The plan is to convert it into a simulator. Did someone say the sky is the limit?