Roving Eye: ‘Ever Watchful’

All FCs have many interesting stories and anecdotes to relate about their various interactions during the discharge of their duties in the operations room or their deployment out in the field. These become memorable anecdotes, but most of the incidents are hair-raising while they are unfolding. Fascinating and satisfying stories are related to the recovery of the aircraft in an emergency, either due to pilot disorientation, a misbehaving instrument of the aircraft or a weather-induced emergency. Almost every FC, in his lifetime, experiences such instances where he renders the much-needed timely help to recover the aircraft and, in certain cases, save the life of the pilot. Such emergencies are everyday affairs in the operations rooms of radar stations or command and control centres. Some of these stories and anecdotes are briefly described here to depict the exciting life of FCs in the operations room where an emergency, which takes a few minutes in the air but leaves behind a lasting impact on the memory, is handled. These stories are also indicative of the kinds of situations that are faced on an everyday basis by the FCs. Only a few representative stories are narrated here, which most aviators would relate to, and be reminded of situations they would have encountered.