By AVM Manmohan Bahadur

The successful firing of the 5000 km range ICBM Agni V on 31 January took one back in time to the very initial days of testing of the 150 km range Prithvi missile, the ‘baby’ of the Integrated Guided Missile Development Programme (IGMDP) of the nation that started in 1983. And if one may add a philosophical touch to scientific exertion, what is life but a collection of experiences! And unique experiences in the field of development of new armament and in flight testing are difficult to beat, especially if you are a helicopter pilot in the Indian Air Force where one encounters situations that other mortals can only dream of. One such learning event in exercise of leadership by a person in command though a reasoned thought process came my way through a teacher extraordinaire. But before his name is revealed, the thrilling event can now be re-counted, as the trial has been chronicled in a book by the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO).

The year was 1989 and the Prithvi missile being developed by the DRDO was in its initial test phase then. A certain component in the missile head was to be evaluated for its operation and the Indian Air Force was asked whether the missile could be carried, under slung beneath a helicopter, and dropped from a height of four kilometers at the Pokharan firing range in the desert of Rajasthan. The requirement was indeed extraordinary, as such a mission had not come the Indian Air Force’s way earlier. The test team of our premier Aircraft Systems and Testing Establishment at Bangalore got down to doing the calculations and came up with an executable plan. The DRDO would need to make a 25 feet high stand to support the two odd tonne test vehicle; a Mi-17 helicopter would hover above it, pull it vertically out and then climb to the required altitude for the drop. This writer was fortunate to be asked to be the pilot and team leader for the trial.

The trial team positioned itself at Pokharan with a Mi-17 for the unique mission. The DRDO moved a plethora of tracking equipment from Hyderabad in an IL-76 of the IAF. The first flight was just a climb to the required altitude of four kilometers to check whether the helicopter handled well with the huge missile hanging beneath it — it did, and so the second flight, which was a live drop, was undertaken. At the prescribed altitude and position, the specially configured trigger was pressed and the missile was on its way down. On landing, we ran to see its effect on the ground targets — there was none! The component had malfunctioned and the warhead had not exploded. The recorded parameters were checked and the video film taken from another helicopter that had flown alongside were analysed; they showed the missile not going down vertically — obviously, there was some configuration error in the centre of gravity! Just one more prototype missile was left at Pokharan (and none at Hyderabad) and the dilemma for the scientists was whether it should be risked in another trial drop, as only some hurriedly calculated changes could be made to its centre of gravity at the desert site. The consensus was that the trial be postponed by a few months and a drop undertaken only after a detailed analysis back at the lab in Hyderabad. We, the Air Force pilots, were told that the decision would be taken by a senior scientist arriving in the evening from Delhi.

In the starlit evening in the desert of Pokharan — whose mesmerizing ethereal beauty has to be experienced to be appreciated — the scientist arrived. After listening to our debrief and viewing the video and telemetry recordings, he took a decision to go ahead with the drop. On hearing a few murmurs of disagreement the scientist said that in life one has to take informed risks and that he, as the programme head, was going ahead. So, in real field conditions of a dusty windy desert, in the middle of the night, the scientists put their heads together and worked to get the missile ready for the next day.

A new day dawned and the sun came out blazing, as it always does in the desert of Rajasthan. The Mi-17 was started and brought to a hover above the stand, the Prithvi warhead lifted cleanly and carried aloft to the designated altitude and dropped! While we were descending rapidly to land and see the result, the range safety officer piped up on the radio that the warhead had performed as desired. WOW, is all that I remember exclaiming in the cockpit!

To this day I carry the vivid image of the scientist with a light, almost fragile, frame and long silver hair locks dangling on his forehead, taking the ‘informed risk’ to go ahead with the warhead drop at the fledgling stage of the Prithvi programme; as they say, the rest is history and the Prithvi has cemented its place in the Indian Guided Missile arsenal of the Armed Forces leading now to the firing of the Agni V. The scientist later rose to be the Supreme Commander of our Armed Forces and the most popular President of India.

This leader was called upon in 2012 by the Government to use his ‘reasoning’ skills to convince the local populace at Kudankulam to withdraw their agitation against the nuclear power plant that was to go on steam. What he spoke to the agitating locals at Kudankulam had the same dynamic spirit that went into taking the decision two decades earlier, that evening in Pokharan, He said “We are all caught too much with the disease of fear and danger…. history is not made by cowards.”

How true — for almost any aspect of our life, personal or professional! The country is at cross roads, with huge expectations from the new Government at Delhi. The nation has a new Raksha Mantri (RM) too and our Ministry of Defence is beset with myriad problems that need his undivided attention. The RM could do well by taking well reasoned decisions which may, albeit, be radical and go against ‘tail clear’ precedents so far, as did Abdul Kalam during the Prithvi drop mission that hot summer day on the sands of Pokharan. Fortune favours the intellectually brave too!

(The author, a retired Air Vice Marshal, is a Distinguished Fellow at the Centre for Air Power Studies, New Delhi).