APPRECIATIONS
View(s):Hit by the aviation bug at a young age, it was up, up, all the way for him
Captain Chira Fernando
Sri Lanka lost its most accomplished and versatile aviator on Friday, September 27.
Hemendra Chirananda ‘Chira’ Fernando was born on October 22, 1946 to Hector Francis Campbell Fernando, an optician, and his wife Merlyn Anne Catherine née Fonseka, a teacher at S. Thomas’ College (STC), Mount Lavinia.
Chira was the fourth of their five children, and STC was where Chira and his older and younger brothers, Eksith and Gihan (a.k.a. ‘GAF’), respectively, received their primary and secondary education.
The aviation bug bit Chira at an early age. With his father’s encouragement he began building and flying model aeroplanes, some to his own designs.
Chira’s enthusiasm for flight rubbed off on his younger sibling. Following in his Punchi Aiyya’s ‘slipstream’, ‘GAF’ retired as a senior Captain with SriLankan Airlines in 2014.
In 1965 Chira joined the Royal Ceylon Air Force (RCyAF) and was earmarked for training as an Engineering Officer Cadet at Royal Air Force (RAF) Cranwell College in England. After completing a programme of physical training at the RCyAF station in Diyatalawa, he left for the UK by ship in February 1966.
A knee injury incurred during a training exercise in Germany became a life-changing, blessing in disguise for Chira. While convalescing in England he was offered the option of joining the General Duties (Pilot) Branch for testing and selection as a trainee pilot. It was a no-brainer for flight fanatic Chira.
He passed a flying aptitude test at RAF Biggin Hill, and commenced training on the Jet Provost, soloing for the first time on October 11, 1967. Eventually, Flight Cadet Chira Fernando was awarded his pilot’s wings by the RAF on August 2, 1968.
Back in Ceylon as a Pilot Officer in the RCyAF, Chira began flying helicopters. Progressing to fixed-wing airplanes, in 1970 he was appointed as a Qualified Flight Instructor at China Bay, Trincomalee.
Chira’s duties escalated when the JVP uprising began on April 5, 1971. One day, on patrol in a JetRanger helicopter, Chira watched in horror as a Jet Provost crashed on land near Thampalagamam Bay. Despite Chira’s efforts at landing his machine close to the wreckage and airlifting the gravely wounded sole occupant to China Bay, the pilot succumbed to his injuries.
After the insurgency Chira resumed instructing at China Bay. In 1974, with the RCyAF now renamed Sri Lanka Air Force, he flew the SLAF’s Soviet-built MiG-15 and MiG-17 jet fighters as Commanding Officer of No. 6 MiG Squadron at Katunayake.
When SLAF jet activity was at a low ebb in 1975, Chira used the downtime to qualify for the UK’s Airline Transport Pilots Licence (ATPL): a civil certification enabling his secondment to fly Air Maldives’ Convair 440 airliners on commercial services between Malé and Colombo.
Various postings and promotions followed in 1977 and 1978 before Chira left the Air Force as a Squadron Leader in June 1981, having qualified on 20 different fixed-wing and helicopter types during his 16 years as a pilot in the RAF and RCyAF/SLAF.
No longer a military flyer, in December 1981 Chira founded a flight training school, his third such venture, at Ratmalana airport. Partnering him in this latest enterprise was future wife Menaka Asankthi (a.k.a. ‘Ashi’), herself a pilot.
Chira joined Air Lanka in June 1982 and qualified as a First Officer (co-pilot) on the Lockheed L-1011 TriStar. After five years he was promoted to Captain and, later still, to senior operational and managerial positions.
In 1987 Chira and Ashi bought a Piper PA-28 Cherokee in Dubai for their flying school and ferried it to Sri Lanka via Karachi and Mumbai. Ashi’s account of that epic journey makes interesting, sometimes nerve-wracking, and even amusing reading!
Another marathon ferry flight followed in October 1991 when Chira and David Pieris piloted the latter’s newly acquired Beechcraft Baron 55 from Lisbon to Colombo with stops en route at Athens, Luxor, Bahrain and Mumbai.
In December 1992, a year after his appointment as Air Lanka’s Manager-Flight Operations, Chira had the honour of ferrying the airline’s new ‘fly-by-wire’ Airbus A320 and A340 jetliners from Toulouse, France to Colombo.
Chira left Air Lanka for Gulf Air in 1997, with occasional postings to Philippine Airlines who were leasing A340s from the Bahrain-based carrier.
But soon afterward, in 1998, Chira was employed by Singapore Airlines as a Captain on the A340. He subsequently served as an instructor on the company’s Boeing 777 fleet until retirement from airline flying in October 2006.
Not yet done with the aviation industry, Chira spent the next decade or so as a simulator instructor for two companies in Singapore.
Throughout his career and even afterward, Chira was actively involved, often with Ashi as his able lieutenant, in general aviation, ab initio and advanced training, helping to construct experimental aircraft, and recreational flying of amphibious airplanes as well as smaller ‘homebuilt’ ultralights and rotorcraft.
Chira was ever eager to share his passion for the air with other aviation enthusiasts, including this non-pilot writer. While I was holidaying in Sri Lanka in May 1995. Chira phoned one morning to ask if I would like to join him on a flight from Ratmalana in David Pieris’ Beech Baron. He had arranged to check out David for his Instrument Rating renewal with a series of ILS ‘touch-and-go’ landings and take-offs at BIA-Katunayake. Of course, I said yes!
As for Chira Fernando’s life away from the cockpit, on July 30, 1971 he married Violet de Silva. They had two sons and a daughter: Kamal Mututantri; Anouk Mututantri; and Chira Fernando Jr. Chira and Violet were divorced in 1989, and on March 7, 1990 he married Ashi.
Not surprisingly, Chira’s eldest son Kamal inherited his father’s aeronautical DNA, and is now a Captain with Qatar Airways.
Chira’s death, a month short of his 78th birthday, was mourned by loved ones and his and Ashi’s friends and associates within and beyond the aviation community in many parts of the world.
Kamal eulogised his ‘darling Thaththa’ as “an amazing human being, meticulous, brilliant, kind, gentle, a superb pilot, and a teacher who never forgot his humble beginnings.”
At the conclusion of the funeral on Tuesday, October 1, a solitary Piper Tomahawk flew over the Kanatte precinct in Chira’s honour. As the airplane bade a final farewell to Capt. Chira Fernando, the words of aviator and poet John Gillespie Magee Jr. never seemed more poignant: “[he] slipped the surly bonds of Earth and danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings … Up, up the long delirious burning blue he topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace where never lark or even eagle flew.”
Rest in Peace, Chira.
Roger Thiedeman
A rare Sri Lankan
Renton de Alwis
We are going to miss you pal! Renton passed away in hospital on Tuesday morning and as per his wishes, his body was handed over to the Medical Faculty of the Sabaragamuwa University. All the children he had helped by offering volunteer classes in mainly music at his home at Kiula, Hambantota, held a paduru party to celebrate his work. He was a father figure with a Santa Claus-like personality to dozens of children in the area.
Renton had many friends, here and abroad, going by the number of posts on email mourning his death. I was among many of his friends who was influenced by his thoughts, guidance and absolute integrity for many years.
I first met him – while working for the now defunct Sun newspaper in the late 1970s – on an assignment about a fisheries project in which Renton was involved. Years later we connected when he was chairman of Sri Lanka Tourism where he served two separate terms.
It was during one of these years that my charity organisation Country Music Foundation (CMF) worked with Renton’s team to help organise the Country Roads concert (one of the longest running concert series in South Asia). By that time the German band Mavericks was a regular performer at these concerts and band leader Dirk and Renton became close friends. “We are going to miss one of our dear friends in Sri Lanka),” said Dirk in a message on FB and requested that the next Country Roads concert should raise funds to help Renton’s voluntary school.
After Renton gave up city life and moved to Kiula, he spent time, money and all his resources to help the children from their village. He relied on the financial support of his family and friends to run the charity. In fact on two occasions, the CMF supported the children in Kiula with instruments and other support.
Renton was a close friend and we shared a common passion for music and helping children. When Renton moved out of tourism and was appointed CEO/Secretary General of the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce, I asked him whether the chamber would be interested in joining the CMF to organise a CEOs breakfast forum on children with UNICEF being associated with the CMF. He immediately jumped at the idea and we organised it to fall on the evening after the Country Roads concert was held. Opening the breakfast forum was the Mavericks who sang a few songs to capture the momentum of an enjoyable concert followed by a serious discourse on children by the country’s leading CEOs.
He was an active commentator on FB and when he received praise for his work, responded: “Only paying back for the free education I got and what my motherland did for me, with a big thank you.”
He also had a regular column in the business section of the Sunday Times during 2003/04 under the pen name ‘RAM – Random Access Memory’ which dealt with life’s issues. We are going to miss you Renton!
Feizal Samath
Thank you for many lessons and inspiring, faithful life
J. GODWIN P. PERERA
My father, J. Godwin P. Perera passed away peacefully at home on September 30. He was 87. The private family burial was officiated by his friend Bishop Dhiloraj Canagasabey.
My father had retired in 2018 after a long and distinguished career culminating in his tenure as Chairman of Ceylinco Life Insurance Ltd. He will be fondly remembered by several generations of corporate leaders who received their training in marketing management under his inspiring tutelage. The marketing fraternity of Sri Lanka will also remember his collegial leadership and contributions to the development of the profession and guild.
My father was born on December 29, 1937. He was an only child. His father Mihindukulasuriyage J. H. Fleming Perera was a postmaster and together with his mother Claribel Adeline (née Chapman) lived away in several outstation postings while my father resided in the home of his aunt Anne Bartholomeusz at Haig Road, Wellawatte, from where he rode his bicycle to Royal College. He also loved his Uncle Lawrence and Aunty Daisy who visited him from Chilaw.
He enjoyed the lively company of his cousins and hated school holidays when he was taken by his parents to whichever lonely outpost, devoid of electricity and entertainment, they happened to live at the time.
He excelled at school. He was a prefect, captain of Marsh House, captain of the debating team, chair of the Senior Literary Association, and winner of the J. R. Jayewardene Prize for Best Speaker in English. Lorenz Pereira, N.D.J. de Silva, P.T.M. Fernando and Ratna Sivaratnam were among his closest schoolmates. When they would meet years later, they shared reminiscences of my father’s endearing personality, his philosophical conversations and scholarly flair for English poetry and oratory.
In the new Open Economy environment of the late 70s and 80s, my father taught himself the new business discipline of marketing. Long before the proliferation of business colleges in the country, he developed and taught a course in marketing management at the Polytechnic in Wellawatte. He later taught different aspects of marketing at the Sri Lanka Institute of Marketing, of which he was President in 1991-92, and the Postgraduate Institute of Management of the University of Sri Jayawardenapura. He felt deeply gratified when young men and women came up to him in offices, shops, banks, hotels and restaurants to identify themselves as his former students and thank him for his memorable lectures.
Although many of his students had preceded him in obtaining the Postgraduate Diploma of the Charted Institute of Marketing, my father was not too proud to avail himself of an advanced course offered by CIM for higher management. He received his Fellowship in 2002, the same year I received my Membership. Father and son appearing in the same group photograph of that year’s CIM recipients was one of the proudest moments of my father’s life.
As a marketing practitioner, my father distinguished himself in a career spanning a wider range of companies including J.L. Morrisons, Baur’s, Delmege Forsyth, Union Carbide (later Eveready), Emso, First & Forward, Lanka Milk Foods, Aitken Spence, Bank of Ceylon, and Ceylinco Insurance. At each workplace, his creativity, initiative, conscientiousness, collegiality, integrity and enthusiasm for customer satisfaction won the trust and admiration of his peers.
Public speaking came very naturally to my father. He appreciated the opportunity to communicate ideas and information he felt were genuinely important to improve the situation he was addressing. He worked hard on crafting his speeches with pertinent details and finessed them with striking quotations from Shakespeare or famous statesmen. He sought my mother’s help to compose speeches in Sinhala and made the effort to get the pronunciation right. He believed in dressing appropriately for every occasion and was noted for his sartorial charm.
He was also a gifted writer. He contributed a regular column to Lanka Monthly Digest, often highlighting the importance of customer-oriented service in the public sector and social responsibility in the private sector. His crowning authorial achievement was the carefully researched and handsomely illustrated corporate history of Ceylinco Insurance which he entitled When the Going Gets Tough, the Tough Get Going. It was published in 2011.
Until the very end of his life, my father occupied himself with researching the histories of Sri Lankan cities and other reminiscences. His articles appeared in the Sunday Island and Sunday Times under the pen name ‘Octogenarian’.
Outside his corporate life, my father was a very private person. He had a small circle of close friends. He keenly felt their loss, one by one, to emigration and the inevitabilities of life. Raised from boyhood in Anglican spirituality, my father was primed to make a deeper personal commitment to follow Christ as his saviour and lord at an evangelistic crusade in the early 1970s. He was sustained by daily devotional practices of Bible reading and family prayer. Until he became too weak to sit through it, he faithfully attended Sunday Service and participated in the fellowship and lay leadership of the Cathedral of Christ the Living Saviour. He was meticulous in his practice of tithing.
He led a disciplined lifestyle of healthy diet and daily exercise. He enjoyed his morning or evening walks at Independence Square immensely, cheerfully greeting and exchanging inside versions of the day’s news with other regulars sharing the circuit.
Above all, my father was a devoted husband to my mother Virani, a supportive father and father-in-law to me and my wife Dorothy, and an adoring grandfather to our sons Micah and Jesse. Throughout his career, he maintained an exemplary work-life balance. He insisted on having family meals at the table, not in front of the television. He planned extensive family holidays around the country and occasionally overseas. He delighted in inviting our family friends to dinner at Otters, Capri or the Rowing Club on special occasions. He was the perfect host.
As I conclude this tribute, my heart is overwhelmed with gratitude to God for giving me the father who raised me, encouraged me in my endeavours, and from whom I am momentarily parted. His example of hard work, devotion to family, enjoyment of life, appreciation of arts and culture, curiosity about the world, and strong Christian faith were consistent throughout his long and fruitful life.
Thaththi, may we meet again, free of suffering, in the presence of our risen Saviour and Lord who makes all things new.
Prabodith Mihindukulasuriya
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