CHANDIGARH: As IAF Suryakiran Aerobatic Team, Asia’s only nine-aircraft aerobatic team, prepares to take over Chandigarh’s skies on March 27 and 28, the spectacle carries a powerful home connect. Behind the precision, speed and split-second coordination are members with roots in the Tricity, including Wing Commander Tejeshwar Singh, the deputy leader, who will be among those flying the formation, turning the display into more than just an air show, but a return to the very ground where these journeys first took flight. For Wing Commander Tejeshwar Singh, a 2005 pass-out of Army Public School, Chandimandir, the journey began with a moment of awe. “In Class 10, I saw a flypast of five Jaguars at an air show. I remember turning to my mother and asking, ‘Are these also humans?’ She told me they were just like us. That stayed with me,” he said. A self-confessed enthusiast of “highadrenaline things”, bikes, cars, machines, he said the pull towards flying was instinctive. After joining the NDA in 2006, choosing the Air Force came naturally.He recalls another defining moment soon after joining the Air Force. “In 2009, during training at Bidar, Isaw the Suryakiran team take off in formation. The red uniform, the aura, even the way they walked, I found myself asking again, ‘Who are these people?’” he said, describing how the curiosity that began in school resurfaced with greater clarity. Having since flown the Sukhoi Su-30MKI as his primary platform, he is now part of that very formation, flying BAE Hawk Mk 132.While he takes to the skies, Flight Lieutenant Kanwal Sandhu, 29, shapes the experience on ground, ensuring the narration and coordination match the precision in air. The team’s commentator and administrator, Sandhu hails from Panchkula and comes from a distinguished Army family- father Col Kirpal Singh (Artillery) and mother Brig Karamjit Kaur (Military Nursing Service).
