Wings of fire - Sir APJ ABDUL KALAM Wings of fire | Page 62

in the areas of aerodynamics, structure and propulsion of
the missile. On the propulsion aspects, I was assisted by
BR Somasekhar and by Wg Cdr P Kamaraju. The
committee members included Dr RP Shenoy and Prof. IG
Sarma who were to review the work done on the electronic
systems.
We met at DRDL on 1 and 2 January 1975, followed by
a second session after about six weeks. We visited the
various development work centres and held discussions
with the scientists there. I was greatly impressed by the
vision of AV Ranga Rao, the dynamism of Wg Cdr R
Gopalaswami, the thoroughness of Dr I Achyuta Rao, the
enterprise of G Ganesan, S Krishnan’s clarity of thought
and R Balakrishnan’s critical eye for detail. The calm of JC
Bhattacharya and Lt Col R Swaminathan in the face of
immense complexities was striking. The zeal and
application of Lt Col VJ Sundaram was conspicuous. They
were a brilliant, committed group of people—a mix of
service officers and civilian scientists—who had trained
themselves in the areas of their own interest out of their
driving urge to fly an Indian missile.
We had our concluding meeting towards the end of
March 1975 at Trivandrum. We felt that the progress in the
execution of the project was adequate in respect of
hardware fabrication to carry out the philosophy of one-to-
one substitution of missile subsystems except in the liquid
rocket area, where some more time was required to
succeed. The committee was of the unanimous opinion that
DRDL had achieved the twin goals of hardware fabrication
and system analysis creditably in the design and
development of the ground electronics complex assigned
to them.
We observed that the one-to-one substitution
philosophy had taken precedence over the generation of
design data. Consequently, many design engineers had not
been able to pay adequate attention to the necessary
analysis which was the practice followed by us at VSSC.
The system analysis studies carried out up to then had also
been only of a preliminary nature. In all, the results
accomplished were outstanding, but we still had a long way
to go. I recalled a school poem:
Don’t worry and fret, fainthearted,
The chances have just begun,
For the best jobs haven’t been started,
The best work hasn’t been done.
The committee made a strong recommendation to the
Government to give Devil a further go-ahead. Our
recommendation was accepted and the project proceeded.
Back home at VSSC, SLV was taking shape. In
contrast to the DRDL which was sprinting ahead, we were
moving slowly. Instead of following the leader, my team was
trekking towards success on several individual paths. The
essence of our method of work was an emphasis on
communication, particularly in the lateral direction, among
the teams and within the teams. In a way, communication
was my mantra for managing this gigantic project. To get
the best from my team members, I spoke to them frequently
on the goals and objectives of the organization,
emphasizing the importance of each member’s specific
contribution towards the realisation of these goals. At the
same time, I tried to be receptive to every constructive idea
emanating from my subordinates and to relay it in an
appropriate form for critical examination and
implementation. I had written somewhere in my diary of that
period: