A
flight over Chowpatty that made history
A flight over Chowpatty that made
history - Times Of India
Pradeep Vijayakar, TNN Oct 18, 2004, 07.05PM IST
MUMBAI: As the roar of the engines of
the Air Force jets died down when the air show ended on Sunday, there were a
few whose thoughts went back to the first flight of a plane at the very
Chowpatty beach over which the air show was held.
In 1895 an Indian pioneer flew what is
said to be the first Indian plane in the air. The centenary year of the first
successful flight, by the Wright brothers, was celebrated from December 17,
2003.
But our own pioneer from Mumbai,
Shivkar Bapuji Talpade, made an aircraft and had flown it eight years earlier.
One of Talpade's students, P Satwelkar,
has chronicled that his craft called 'Marutsakha'(Friend of the Winds) flew
unmanned for a few minutes and came down.
Talpade belonged to the Pathare Prabhu community, one of
the founder of Mumbai. According to aviation historians Mr Talpade used his
knowledge of the Rig Vedas to build a plane.
Orville and Wilbert Wright accomplished
their feat in California
The Wright brothers based the design of
their aircraft by studying bird movements.
Mr Talpade used the principle of solar
energy combined with mercury to design his plane.
Pratap Velkar, in his book on the
Pathare Prabhu community, says that Mr Talpade also studied the achievements of
aviation pioneers like Alva Edison who flew in a balloon and survived a mishap
in 1880. Mr Talpade's study included the experiment of machine gun inventor
Hiram Maxim who propelled his steam plane down a slope. It did not take off for
technical reasons.
In 1896 Samuel Langley's steam balloon
flew at a height of 100 feet and a three quarters of a mile. Then came the
famous Zeppelin 1900 which successfully flew at a height of 1100 feet after
three attempts in Germany
The first breakthrough in flying was
made by a Brazlian, Santos D'Monte. He made 14 planes between 1901 and 1904 in
his country. And he flew them himself. Many believe that Santos
According to Mr Velkar, Mr Talpade
studied these flights which inspired him to make an aircraft and fly. Mr
Talpade was staying at what is today Nagindas Shah Marg in Girgaum in the
bustling heart of Mumbai. The frame of the historic plane was gathering dust at
his house after his death. One of his nieces, Roshan Talpade, has been quoted
by Mr Velkar's book saying the family used to sit in the aircraft's frame and
imagine they were flying. At a recent exhibition on flying at Vile Parle, a
model of 'Marutsakha' was exhibited
.
Mr Velkar regrets that Mr Talpade's
plane has not found a place in the aviation museum at Nehru Centre, nor is
there a memorial to his feat at Chowpatty.
However some documents relating to his
experiment have been preserved at the Hindustan Aeronautics Limited in Bangalore
At an aeronautical conference in
Chennai Talpade's flight was discussed by foreign delegates. D H Bedekar,
one-time principal defence scientific officer, has said Mr Talpade's plane for
some technical reasons failed to operate to its full design limits.
Talpade
wanted to unravel the mystery with further experiments. He even made an appeal
for funds some Rs 50,000 at a public meeting in Ahmedabad he had addressed. But
to no avail. As his biographer,Professor Kelkar, wrote: "His efforts
crashed like a bird whose wings are slashed."
In
contrast the US US
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