Flying a new passion

What does it take to give Amdavad’s greatest sporting hero — the nine-time World Billiards Champion Geet Sethi — a new high? Answer: Flying an aircraft.
Ahmedabad Mirror can confirm that if all goes well, Sethi will get his private pilot’s licence (PPL) in two months. It’s been more than a year since 48-year-old Sethi is flying planes, of course, with an instructor for company.
Just how Sethi, the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna awardee, first entered the cockpit is a wonderful story in itself. It was his son Raag’s 16th birthday, in 2008, and junior Sethi’s wish was to fly an aircraft with his dad.
Without any second thoughts, the father-son duo travelled all the way to Australia to undergo a five-week stint at Liverpool Flying Club on the outskirts of Sydney.
One of the most gratifying stages of flight training is the very first take-off, said Sethi. So delightful did the training turn out to be for the billiards legend that he now confesses flying has become a passion.
Now, Sethi is focussed on January 2010, when he will obtain his licence. He said, “Raag and I will have to go through a general flying progress test (GFPT), which, if cleared, allows us to fly solo. We are planing to go to Australia again in January. Now, we can take our family and friends for a spin in the sky but to obtain the PPL, we need to go through navigations, that is fly from point A to point B in a specified time.”
It won’t be easy, as the father-son duo will have to fly the aircraft without the assistance of GPS and other supports. But Padmashree Geet Sethi, who also won the Arjuna Award way back in 1986, is up for the challenge.
23/11/09 Suniel Subbaiah/Ahmedabad Mirror.com