Chocks are wooden or metallic blocks of triangular shape placed against the wheels of an aircraft to prevent it from moving accidentally when on the ground. When the pilot gets ready to taxi out an aircraft he displays the “chocks off” signal to the ground crew who straight remove the chocks from the front of the wheels and place them well away so that they do not roll off with the blast of air swept by the engine or engines. A steel tube is fitted between the two perpendicular planks of the chock to hold the slanting ones intact.
Chocks are mostly the ground equipments snakes easily occupy and enjoy the run of them. Once when the chocks were moved off the wheels of a small propeller driven aircraft for it to taxi out to the runway a lascar named, Naidu one of the employees in our basic flying training institution started carrying them one in his hand and the other on his pate with one or two of his digital extremities inserted into an end of the steel tube of the chock for keeping them away. Noticing a snake emerging out of the tube, some of us standing afar hollered, “Naidu! Drop the chock; there is a snake in it”. Given the deafening noise of the blast of air swept behind by the aircraft drowning out our loud shouts he kept moving ahead. Soon luck coming in his favour, he dropped the chock on the ground due only to the creepy movement of the venomous reptile down his barren forearm. Without a shadow of doubt it was a cobra that in a trice melted into the bushes nearby. It had been staying inside the chock till then as snug as a bug in a rug.
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During monsoon canvas covers spread on aircraft parked in the open at the nocturnal hours to prevent entry of water are another attraction for venomous reptiles in the airfield. The following morning the wet covers are removed from the aircraft and spread on the tarmac for drying up. Once bone dry they are folded and placed in the hangar when snakes could be seen wriggling quickly out from under them and mizzling into the grassy land skirting the tarmac.
Once a trainer aircraft with a single engine developed a snag while taxing back to the tarmac after landing compelling the pilot to park it on the taxi track itself. Soon the pilot was brought back to the base in a car. One of the senior technicians of the ground crew was carried double-quick to the spot to troubleshoot and rectify the fault. Squatting near a main wheel of the aircraft as he stretched his hand into the wheel bay to check the operation of some component he felt something acutely pricking his hand. In next to no time craning his neck into the wheel bay he looked curiously inside, only to find a snake in it. Shuddered with fright he stood lost for words. Watching him writhing with pain the driver of the vehicle that had brought him to the aircraft took him to the hospital.
May be, serpents seldom miss any opportunity to stay holed up in the nooks and crannies on aircraft and their associated ground equipments.
