30 Nov 2009
BJP LEADER GETS LICENCE TO FLY AIRBUS!
By R Rajagopalan
NEW DELHI: Former Civil Aviation Minister and BJP spokesman Rajiv Pratap Rudy, a Rajya Sabha MP from Bihar, is now a qualified pilot to fly the jet airliner Airbus-320.
He intends to take up honorary job in a commercial airline to log in minimum hours of flying required to keep up the Airbus licence he acquired early this month from the United States.
Rudy took a month's leave from political life to undergo the crash course at Miami, Florida in the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)-approved SimCenter for vigorous training that got him the rating from FAA to fly the Airbus 320.
Only commercial pilots are entertained for the accelerated courses and Rudy qualified since he had acquired a commercial pilot's licence (No 5682) two years ago.
Married to Neelam is an air hostess, the 47-year old Rudy has taken part in many flying competitions, but his dream remained to fly Airbus.
He is proud to claim that he was "perhaps the only politician in India who has a licence to fly the Airbus." He says he is not switching profession as "politics is my life" but all the same he concedes that he may join a commercial airline to keep his latest skill honed.
"I may even have to join an airline to keep flying but I will not take any remuneration," he said.
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