I enjoyed reading the four-part account "Flight to fame” (Parsiana, April 7 to June 6, 2021) about the path-breaking flight of Aspy Engineer in 1930. It was a great adventure fraught with danger from sand storms in the Libyan desert and marauding Bedouins.
One Purushottam Meghji Kabali, a Maharashtrian gentleman, was the first licensed pilot in India. Like Engineer, he came from a well-to-do family which allowed him to purchase a British made Simmonds Spartan single-engine bi-plane in 1930. At the taking charge of the plane ceremony in Croydon the achhu-michhu ceremony was performed by Sarojini Naidu in the presence of Sir Dorab Tata, his wife and other dignitaries. Kabali named the aircraft "Feather of the Dawn.”
Purushottam Kabali with his single engine aeroplane
Kabali was to fly the small plane solo from Croydon in England to Bombay (via Karachi) on a pre-planned route of Croydon-Paris-Marseilles-Pisa-Rome-Tunis-Tripoli-Aboukir-Gaza-Basra-Bushire-Bandar Abbas-Jask-Charbat-Karachi. This was the route more or less followed by Engineer. All went well, but unfortunately, as it often happens over the Arabian desert, an unpredictable sand storm (called a haboob) occurred and was so strong that it blew the small engine light Simmonds Spartan aeroplane into the desert sand!
By a stroke of luck, because of low speed and the soft sand, Kabali was not injured. The plane was later dismantled and brought to Bombay in sections by truck and ship. (See full story at: Simmonds Spartan VT-AAT and Purushottam Meghji Kabali at:
https://www.hampshireairfields.co.uk › airfields › vtaat)