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Aviation History
1960
1960 - 2426.PDF
670 FLIGHT, 28 October I960 PIA Profile An Assessment of Pakistan's Airline: Part 2—Above the Snowline Story and "Flight" photographs by ALASTAIR PUGH THE flight to Gilgit has something in common with thosemouth-drying, palm-moistening runs on a funfair big-dipper. With mounting tension you are hauled up quite slowly to the release point, plunge wildly down and around a seriesof swerves and inclines and finally—all energy spent—roll quietly down the final slope to the finish. It is hot at Rawalpindi in the morning; by ten o'clock thetemperature is pushing up past the 80s, and as our DC-3 lifts off, turns north and heads, climbing hard, straight for the hills, itbumps and rocks in the shimmering heat rising from the dry, red-brown earth of the plain. Almost immediately we are scrapingacross the first scrub-covered foothills, barely three hundred feet below, but as we clear them there is another higher ridge ahead,and then another, and another until they are hills no longer, but fade mistily into the distant peaks of apparently limitlessmountains. You get nearly 6,2001b of payload with a DC-3 at 28 °C anda take-off weight of 26,9001b: perhaps half a dozen passengers and a cargo of commodities essential for survival in the bleakKashmiri winter—wheat and rice, fuel for the jeeps, kerosine for the lamps, precious salt, and ammunition for the army. Underthe tie-down netting in our aircraft are painstakingly decorated tin trunks (do they belong to the two Moslem ladies in purdah,who sit so demurely in their double seat?), mysterious bundles wrapped in the rough, dyed Kashmir tweed, and coarse brownsacks in which PIA delivers these high-flying groceries for the Ministry of Kashmir affairs. The passengers, not the freight, arethe incidentals here. Though the aircraft are internally very clean, these DC-3s are very much freighters, and a fleet of five of themis committed to making nearly 1,000 mountain sorties through the high snows every year. Almost absolute reliance for Gilgit and Skardu's supplies isplaced on PIA's extended freight charter; the road—a jeep track impassable to two-wheel-drive vehicles—winds tenuously acrossthe 14,000ft Bahusa pass and is snowed-in for all but a few short summer months each year. Even then, the journey takes anarduous, outdoor-living seven days compared to an hour and twenty minutes in the aircraft. PIA have been operating this THE freight run from Rawalpindi to the Kashmir towns of Gilgit andSkardu is probably one of the most exciting regular civil air operations in the world. Although the journey time by DC-3 takes less than anhour and a half, it is never flown at less than ten thousand feet. Even then, on either side of the aircraft the mountains tower up 10,000,12,000, even 16,000ft to the lofty summit of Nanga Parbat, and drop 6,000ft below into the valleys of the Indus. Here, a member of "Flight's"staff who has recently visited Pakistan recounts his impressions of the route among the snows of the Karakorum range west of the Himalayas. service for nearly twelve years, and in all that time have had onlyone accident. Going forward, I find Capt Baluch, a towel over his knees toprotect his white uniform trousers from dusty stores, keeping 2,400 r.p.m., 31in, and the airspeed at 115kt. Below the nose thescrubby brown and green give way to fiercer, more precipitous shale-covered slopes and in the distance, over on the left, sunlightreflects briefly from the Indus, coiling snake-like in the valleys between the mountains. Correct airspeed is one of the safeguardsof this operation. To make certain that the aircraft can get back if an engine fails, 10,500ft must be reached before we join theIndus valley. From our interception point we follow it in a long curve east, northeast and then north towards Gilgit. Climbingup at about 4OO-5OOft/min on a northerly heading, the first of several timed and visual check points is reached when a loop inthe Indus first crosses our track. From here on, we fly on timed legs and compass headings, for the mountains and valleys havea deceptive habit of changing their appearance from one hour to the next, and a premature turn with a loaded aircraft into thewrong valley can end in only one way—no room to turn, no chance of climbing and the mountain walls remorselessly closing in. At the operating height Capt Baluch throttles to 2,000 r.p.m. Most of these cockpit-eye photographs of the Gilgit operation were taken from heights of lOfiOO-16,000ft above ground level, the two exceptions being the approach to the shingle-covered runway (opposite) and the far picture on the right, above, which was taken shortly after taking off from Gilgit before turning back down the valley. To the right of the runway is a new tarmac strip which, opening next month, will next year be used by a PIA F.27 Freightship
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