TATA AIRLINES-Evolution of Indian Aviation

Evolution of Indian Aviation with TATA Airlines :

India history was made with the evolution of Indian Aviation. The lines were written in Golden words when India’s first commercial airline—Tata Airlines started in India. It was on 15 October 1932,29-year-old Jehangir Ratanji Dadabhoy Tata (JRD), landed his de Havilland DH 80A Puss Moth aircraft in India, on the inaugural flight of India’s first scheduled air-mail service from Karachi to Bombay.

The plane flew from England to South Bombay’s Alexandra Docks. There, JRD’s friend, industrialist Nusserwanjee Guzder, had the dismantled aircraft transported to the Juhu Flying Club, where it was reassembled after lot of efforts as everyone was new to that.

Tata’s landing that day was the culmination of a schoolboy fixation with flying that began in France. He spent his formative years at his father Ratanji’s seaside cottage in Normandy.  A little along the beach lived the dashing French pilot Louis Blériot—the first man to fly across the English Channel. Blériot’s daredevil adventures captivated the young JRD; from that point on, all he wanted to do was fly.

During WWI, Jehangir read every book he could find on the battles taking place in the skies above Europe. But there was no airport in Bombay when he returned to India following military service in 1924, aged 21. So when, three years later, a new flying club opened in Juhu, JRD signed up immediately and, in 1929, became the first person in India to hold a commercial pilot’s licence.