IT was a beautiful moonlit night, ideal for night flying at PAF Base Masroor, Karachi. The month was October in the year 1990. I was a Squadron Leader then and was detailed to perform Mobil duties. Mobil is a small glass cabin next to the runway to monitor flying in the immediate vicinity of the airfield to assist the taking offs/landings and airborne traffic for any procedural guidance. It is the most appropriate place to witness flying as closely as possible, as you are just a few hundred feet away from the aircraft with flashing navigation lights, full beam of landing lights and the roar of the jets with the red/violet plume oozing out of the exhaust section of aircraft during the take-offs.

As the first wave was about to take-off our Officer Commanding Flying Wing, Gp Capt Ata-ur-Rehman arrived at the Mobil accompanied by a couple who seemed to be in their seventies. The gentleman was Wg Cdr Edwin Nazirullah and the accompanying lady was his wife. The visitors quickly settled down in the Mobil to watch the activity as the aircraft started to line up for the take-off sequence. For the first wave we had eight Mirage aircraft. After the first wave took-off there was a lull in the activity. During this period Wg Cdr Edwin Nazirullah started to narrate his experiences of IAF where he got his commission as a fighter pilot. After partition he was the first Station Commander of RPAF Station Peshawar.

As nostalgia grew he took a steep dive down memory lane and started to narrate about his prominent and close colleagues that he had served with. During that conversation he mentioned........

© Pakistan Observer