Did India’s first flight soar from Chennai?

This December, the civil aviation scene in India turns 104. While some official records mark December as when civil aviation took off in India, historians point to the fact that the first bi-plane was airborne over Madras months earlier.

Aviation historian Anuradha Reddy said, “In March 1910, a Corsican baker from Madras, G. D’ Angelis, took off in a self-designed bi-plane from Pallavaram. It just flew for a while and landed. That demonstration flight was the first in India.”

But, there was not much development after that as the British didn’t focus on the aviation front in the south, she added. Two decades later, the first air mail from Karachi landed in Madras via Ahmedabad, Bombay and Bellary after J.R.D. Tata realised the need to connect the peninsula with the rest of the country. “It was a revolutionary act back then to link the north and the south with such a flight. He understood that the importance of aviation is communication with speed,” she added.

Ms. Reddy noted that the importance of Madras in the national aviation scene was further reinforced after the Madras Flying Club was established in March 1930. “After Bombay, a flying club in Madras was started in 1930 and formed the basis of what came to be known as passenger traffic,” she added.

K.R.A Narasiah, another aviation historian, recollects that Deccan Airways, promoted by the Nizam of Hyderabad, was one of the first flight operators from Madras. “A flight from Madras to Delhi via Hyderabad was inaugurated in July 1946. It was a 21-seater Dakota. In fact, there is an advertisement which announces the fare from Madras to Hyderabad as Rs. 65,” he said.

When RM Alagappa Chettiar started Madras-based Jupiter Airlines, he paid the pilots Rs. 40 an hour for flying, Mr. Narasiah added.