Not all the details have been properly researched on Bijubabu’s Kalinga Airways. Very few will know that there were two registered logos of Bijubabu’s airline (Kalinga Airlines)—one, a jumping deer and the other, a round logo with the Lingaraj Temple in it.
Both the logos were prominently painted on the front of the aircraft, just below the cockpit. They also featured on the tickets, timetables, and stationery of the Kalinga Airlines. On the letterheads, they were embossed in gold. But the parked Dakota aircraft at the Bhubaneswar airport too doesn’t have these logos in the right place, said researcher Anil Dhir.
“In all my research I could only get photographs of two Dakotas which bore the logos. The prominent one was on VT-CRA (Serial No.12505-Dakota C-47 A) last parked outside the hangar at Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport, Mumbai. It was photographed by Jimmy Wadia in July 1978. The aircraft has since been scrapped. I could find no trace of it when I made a search two years ago,” Dhir said.
The parked aircraft at the Biju Patnaik International Airport, Bhubaneswar should have these logos in the right place. The size of the font used to paint Kalinga Airlines too is twice the size that was originally painted. These corrections should be made, he opined.
“I have a big collection of memorabilia from the Kalinga Airlines which include letters, stationery, tickets, maps, time-tables, etc. If the powers that be are interested, I will gladly give them to the Ananda Bhavan Museum at Cuttack after I have completed my book. Quite a few photos that are displayed at the museum were given by me, which is duly acknowledged in the captions,” Dhir said.