A Sukhoi, an empty fuel tank and a Haryanvi cowboy: From Ram Niwas to Ronnie Texan and a twist on radio telephony

By the time he cleared his first term at the National Defence Academy, Khadakwasla, he had acquired the nickname Ronnie Texan instead of Ram Niwas. During his first term, Ronnie watched Top Gun, starring Tom Cruise. It was a compulsory screening for all cadets in Habibullah Hall. The next day, Ronnie decided he would become nothing less than a fighter pilot in the Indian Air Force.

The nickname stuck because Ronnie insisted on speaking only in English. Albeit heavily accented, Haryanvi English. He made serious efforts to improve. By the time he passed out as Battalion Cadet Captain from the academy, he had acquired what he proudly considered the King’s English, enabling him to produce beautifully constructed sentences such as:

“Go and run around that wooden tree.”

Ronnie left no one in doubt about what he meant. He had cultivated the habit of being precise and on the mark in communication. In due course, Ronnie Texan became a hotshot pilot flying the Sukhoi Su-30.

One day, Ronnie was returning from a long-distance sortie. The fuel gauge showed he was running critically low. The silver ribbon of the airstrip shimmered just a mile away.

“Alfa to Tango, coming in to land now,” he radioed the air traffic controller in the radar tower.

“Tango to Alfa, you are cleared for landing,” came the reply.

They watched the Sukhoi approach, lose altitude and, just as it was about to touch the tarmac, suddenly pull up and climb again.

“Tango to Alfa, why didn’t you land? You have no fuel for further flying. Why didn’t you land?” asked the controller.

Ronnie was silent for a few moments as his Sukhoi climbed, leaving the runway below. Then he replied:

“Sir, there is a cowboy on the airstrip. I can’t land.”

The air traffic control tower was aghast. How on earth could a man on a horse be trotting across an active runway? Where could he have come from? Officers peered out, baffled. The senior officer grabbed a powerful pair of binoculars and scanned the strip from end to end, half expecting a rugged, Stetson-wearing rider in jeans.

All he saw was a small white calf ambling down the runway.

“Tango to Alfa, we see no cowboy. There is a small calf on the airfield. We are having it removed.”

Ronnie responded earnestly:

“That’s what I said, sir. There is a cowboy on the airstrip. The son of a cow. Boy of a cow, sir. I mean, a cowboy, sir.”

The “cowboy” was promptly escorted off the runway, and Ronnie Texan landed his Sukhoi safely, almost on fumes.

In earlier days, this story was often narrated to young trainee pilots at the Air Force Academy to underline the importance of correct radio telephony phraseology.

And somewhere in the skies, Ronnie Texan’s English continued to be accurate, if occasionally agricultural.