Vayu Aerospace & Defence Review lost their long-standing Bangalore Editor, the veteran Commander Munipella Nirmal (IN) from medical complications after recovering from Covid while still at the Command Hospital in Bangalore on 5 August 2020.
Commander M Nirmal was with Vayu for 17 years, joining the Journal soon after he retired from Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) in April 2003. Vayu’s Issue II/2003, welcomed him, publishing an iconic photograph of his next to the HAL Gnat, mounted at Minsk Square, close to HAL’s Corporate Office.
As written at the time, Commander M Nirmal has been a well known personality at the Hindustan Aeronautics Limited Corporate Office, Bangalore and at various expositions, shows and events in many parts of the world, his pleasant personality, readiness to help and infectious confidence being the hallmark.
Nirmal was a Naval aviator for twenty years before his second career brought him to HAL. After getting his BE in Mechanical Engineering in 1966, he went to the Naval College of Engineering at INS Shivaji (for Marine Engineering) and thence to the Air Force Technical College at Bangalore for Aeronautical Engineering in 1969.
During his service with the Indian Navy, Nirmal was involved is maintenance support of various aircraft types and their powerplants including the Westland Sea King ASW helicopter and its Rolls Royce Gnome engine before doing sea time on board the cruiser INS Delhi and frigate INS Betwa. He was Station Air Engineering Officer at the Naval Air Station INS Garuda, Cochin, responsible for 3rd and 4th line servicing of Sea Hawks, Alizes and Kirans of the Navy before moving to INAS 330, operating Sea Kings.
His broad-based experience then included posting as Command Air Technical Officer at INS Kunjali Bombay, and later as in-charge of the Base Maintenance facility at INS Hansa in Goa where Ilyushin I1-38s and Kamov 25/27s were based. In 1987, he became Senior Staff Technical Officer to FONA before, in 1988, joining HAL in the Customer Services Department, providing support to Dornier 228 operators from the Air Force, Navy and Coast Guard.
In 1992, Nirmal was posted to HAL's Planning Department, monitoring production and preparing project reports. Nirmal's natural forte was evident when he moved to the Marketing and Public Relations Department in 1993, where he was to be for the next decade, organising HAL's participations at air shows, both at Yelahanka since 1993 and international exhibitions at Le Bourget, Singapore, Dubai, Malaysia and Abu Dhabi.
Cdr Nirmal, second from the right, with the Vayu team at Aero India 2011.
Commander Nirmal's role in preparing and producing HAL's 60th Anniversary Book (Diamonds in the Sky) and getting the Department of Posts & Telegraphs to release four special stamps on HAL in the Centennial year of man's first powered flight, were most commendable indeed!
Then, over the next 17 years with Vayu Aerospace Review, Cdr Nirmal verily became fountainhead of the Journal at Bangalore and elsewhere, coordinating visits to various aerospace establishments in the city and beyond, interviewing executives of Hindustan Aeronautics Limited, National Aerospace Laboratory, Aeronautical Development Agency, various DRDO establishments and so many more. Cdr Nirmal was at the forefront of Vayu’s continuous participation at the Air Shows which began at Yelahanka in 1993, including editing of Show Dailies, being Master of Ceremony at the unique Great Indian Aviation Quiz Contest at Aero India 2005 where Marshal of the Air Force Arjan Singh DFC honoured the prize winners.
He will be greatly missed by his family, the many friends and his colleagues in the Navy, HAL and the Vayu.
RIP Nirmal ji.