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72 years old, and he is still flying. He began flying in the Buddhist Era 2472 at the Civil Flight Training facility (604 Squadron) of the Royal Thai Air Force in Don Muang airport. The head of the group at the time was Col. Prasopsuk. Adjan Krisda learned to fly in a Dehavilland Chipmunk, and his instructor told him during the training, “don’t try to do something that you haven’t been taught to do.” The Chipmunk is a taildragger, and at the time, Adjan Krisda did not know that it was a difficult aircraft to land, because it was the first aircraft he ever flew; “the plane was older than me!” At the time, Adjan Krisda was an Associate Professor at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok teaching Architecture, and he was also running his own Architectural practice. Previous to this, he was a Captain in the Royal Thai Army, and he later served 2 years as Deputy Governor of Bangkok and 4 years as Governor of Bangkok.
Adjan Krisda first went to USA at age 16 to study at Wilbraham Academy Prep school in West Springfield, Massachusetts. He then was accepted at M.I.T. in 1950. He said that M.I.T. wanted to flunk out 1/3 of the incoming students after Freshman year, so the environment was very competitive. He chose to study Architecture because he wanted to use his life to create something beautiful that would outlast his own life. He was offered a scholarship by the Thai Government, but he didn’t accept it, because he felt that it should go to someone else who needed it more than him. When he returned to Thailand with his Masters from M.I.T., he had to fulfill his military service. His mother’s friend was close to General Sarit, so he volunteered to be an officer and started as Captain in the engineering Army camp in Pranburi. He also served as a Liason Officer for an American General (2500-2503) before the coup d’etat by General Sarit.
Khun Thira T. Suwan was involved with the Thai Flying Club from the very beginning. He was the first Treasurer of the club; he served 3 terms as President (from 1996 to 2002), and he holds Thai Private Pilot’s License #001. His love for flying began when he was 8 years old. His mother had taken him to visit a booth for the Royal Thai Air Force, and he subscribed to “Chang Agat” (the Thai Aviation Engineering Magazine). The following year he began control line flying of model aircraft in a small area near his family house on Soi Prompong in Bangkok. When he attended Grammar School in London at age 14, he persuaded the Catholic Priests to allow him to continue his control line flying in the school yard. The priests had never seen it before, and they were quite impressed. Khun Thira then went to America to attend Carnegie Institute of Technology in Pittsburgh. His father had started a printing business in Thailand, and he was enrolled at the Printing Technology Management School. He remembers that Pittsburgh was cold, and there was one other Thai person there. When he went one day to fly his control line model in a local park, the police stopped him. That was the end of his model flying in the USA. During his second year, he went with one of his roommates, Jim Wayland, to visit a nearby airpark. They took a 30 minute flight in a 60 H.P. Aeronca Champ. It cost US$5 per hour. He remembers England being “rather conservative” and his reflections on America were that it was huge place where people were free, happy, outspoken, outgoing, and he loved the non-stop music on the radio. Khun Thira had studied the Violin and the Piano, and continued the Piano at University. His interests were Tennis, Soccer, and Fencing. After completing his studies in 1963, he returned to Thailand to work in his family’s printing company with his father and his brother. He married and had some children, but flying was still in his mind. It was on a family holiday in Hua Hin, that he noticed some small aircraft landing at the airport there. He followed them and walked to the airport, and that is where he started to think.
Major Suropol Premsmith is 73 years old. He was born in Prachinburi and started flying for the Royal Thai Air Force in Korat when he was 17. He says that in Laos, they have a proverb – “Ma Noi, Bow Loo Jak SuuA” (the puppy doesn’t know the tiger). Kruu Surapol started his training in the Dehavilland Chipmunk, then in the T-6 American. From 2495-2497 (Buddhist Era), he was in the “Top Ten” Groundschool. There were American U.S.A.F. instructors who trained him in cross country and night flying. He finished in the top 80% of his class. The top pilots have two choices – they become Fighters or Instructors. Everybody else goes to fly cargo or something. At age 19, Kruu Surapol was flying the F-8-F American Grumman Bearcat. This was a single seat tailwheel fighter aircraft with an 18 cylinder radial engine. “I liked it,” Kruu Surapol says, “It was flexible and could do everything. The aircraft was designed for World War II.” He flew the Bearcat for over 15 years. By the year 2515, he had 2,300 hours in the Bearcat and 7,000 hours in the T-6 as an instructor for combat flying. The Thai word for “Bearcat” was “Mee-Maeow.” In 2499, Kruu Surapol was in Vietnam. His missions were “Go and Back” in the T-28. Kruu tells the story of the Top Secret Air Attache from the Pentagon in USA who was conducting the operations in Laos from Vientiane. Kruu Surapol was based in Udon Thani. He would fly to Vientiane for “Weapon Loading” then “Bomb or Rocket the location” and return to Udon before nightfall. There were two times that he landed in the secret CIA airbase of Long Tien. One night, the Air Attaché had a party up there, and they flew up in a C-47 to attend the party.
Khun Wichai Laksanakorn was the fourth president of the Thai Flying Club. When he was in 8th grade (mau 4), he won the Air Force contest for Rubber-band powered balsa airplnes (kleung bin chai yang). He started flying when he was 39 at the Civilian Flying Training Division of the Royal Thai Airforce at Don Muang. This was class 33, and Wichai was the head of the class. Khun Wichai has been to Oshkosh in US more than 12 times, and he has owned four different airplanes – including a Piper Cherokee, Cessna P210, Piper Malibu, and PZL-104 Wilga. They are all different and they are all his favorite, he says. The Cherokee is docile, the 210 and Malibu are for long distance, and the Wilga is just plain fun. Wichai served as Secretary of the Thai Flying Club for 6 years under the second President Air Chief Marshall Amporn Kondee. There were two major advances in General Aviation in Thailand that occurred during his sixth year as Secretary. The first was that the club succeeded to convince the authority to allow registration of private aircraft under an individual’s name. Previously, they were only registered under the club’s name. The second major advancement was that they succeeded to convince the authority to deregulate and to allow cross-country flights without prior permission. Previously, the club had to request two weeks in advance. Subsequent to deregulation, they could file a flight plan and go. Khun Wichai stresses that these advances were only possible because of the ten years of good behavior on the part of the club in which time, the club had built a good trust and friendship relationship with the Department of Civil Aviation. This is one of the special ways that progress is made in Thailand. Khun Wichai also has his helicopter license which he received at the Civil Aviation Training Center in Hua Hin in a R22 and Engstrom helicopter.