Wings of Duty — Page 47
47 comprised hundreds of men, women and children. The convoys usually started from Qadian in the morning and reached Lahore in the evening. One day, a convoy did not arrive and Huzoor was extremely concerned. By nightfall we were unable to determine its whereabouts and Huzoor called an urgent meeting. Someone suggested that we could fly an airplane over the area and search for it with a flashlight. I replied that because it was dark, I would have to fly at a minimum height of 500 feet. In addition, an ordinary flashlight was of no help. As a point of interest, when a plane lands at night, it has all of its landing lights on, the intensity of which is about 20 million candlepower whereas a flashlight would only have about 50 or 60 candlepower. I also told him that our small plane could take off and land at night if the runway was lit, but it had no instruments for navigating in the dark during the flight. Despite this, I decided to fly out and look for the convoy. Huzoor’s anxiety made my decision for me. I could not bear to see him like this and it gave me all the courage I needed. Sahibzada Mirza Munir Ahmad also decided to come with me on this mission. A few years earlier, he too had received some flight training, before eventually deciding to pursue a career in business.