In the last couple of years, a slew of budget airlines have cropped up in India. But not every Indian can experience the joys of air travel. It never has been the case. For example, I lost my air travel virginity (for the record, I am not a member of the “Mile High Club” yet) when I flew here in 2001 to start grad school in Ohio.

Six years on, the status quo has not changed. Most of these airlines are not budget enough, by Skybus standards. But they do offer discounted rates to entice the first class rail traveller to cut a bunch of hours of traveling time by switching to air travel. The “aam junta” has to make do with observing airplanes as they take off and land or have to be satisfied by making paper aeroplanes. Recently though, like in every other case, virtual reality has come to help. But this is virtual reality served desi ishtlye!

The Times reports (via Gizmodo) that a desi entrepreneur has come up with the ultimate idea to simulate air travel. It’s air travel served up just like porn!

Bahadur Chand Gupta, a retired Indian Airlines engineer, bought an old Airbus 300 from an insurance company in 2003, rebuilt it, and it now sits in a Delhi suburb where people pay $4 per “trip” so they can experience what it must be like to fly.

And he even throws in a safety demonstration and food service, for good measure. (Note: You can cut out all the “practicing safe sex while watching porn” jokes)

As on an ordinary aircraft, customers buckle themselves in and watch a safety demonstration. But when they look out of the windows, the landscape never changes. Even if “Captain” Gupta wanted to get off the ground, the plane would not go far: it only has one wing and a large part of the tail is missing.

I have an idea. Pull down the blinds. It’ll be perfect then!

Passengers are looked after by a crew of six, including Gupta’s wife, who goes up and down the aisle with her drinks trolley, serving meals in airline trays.

So it’s the perfect low cost flight simulator. And by all accounts, Gupta can go ahead and set up a training school for stewardesses.

Some of the stewardesses hope to get jobs on proper planes one day and regard it as useful practice.

Hell, one can even get the Continental experience.

The plane has no lighting and the lavatories are out of order. The air-conditioning is powered by a generator.

That this simulator is perfect is established beyond question by the reactions of those who have experienced the experience!

“I see planes passing all day long over my roof,” Selim, a 40-year-old tyre mechanic was quoted as saying. “I had to try out the experience.”

Jasmine, a young teacher, had been longing to go on a plane. “It is much more beautiful than I ever imagined,” she said.

Wow. Trust a desi to dream up an opportunity where none exists.

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