When APJ Abdul Kalam Missed His Pilot Dream by One Rank: The Untold Story of India's Missile Man

When APJ Abdul Kalam Missed His Pilot Dream by One Rank

When he was a young boy, APJ Abdul Kalam had one big dream to become a fighter pilot in the Indian Air Force. He loved the idea of flying. In his own words, his "dearest dream" was to handle a machine as it rose into the sky.

He worked hard and became an aeronautical engineer. He got two job interviews. One was for a technical role at the Defence Ministry (called DTDP). The other was for the Air Force in Dehradun.

At the Air Force interview, he saw that they were not just looking for smart engineers. They were also looking for a certain kind of "smartness" and presence in a person.

When the results came, he was ranked 9th out of 25 candidates. It was heartbreaking news. Only the top eight were selected. He had missed his dream by just one rank.

"I had failed to realise my dream of becoming an air force pilot," he wrote. He was very disappointed. He went for a long walk to think, eventually going to Rishikesh to find a new path.

There, he realized something important. He later said, “It is only when we are faced with failure do we realise that these resources were always there within us. We only need to find them and move on with our lives.”

So, he moved on. He took the other job offer and became a Senior Scientific Assistant at the DTDP. He put his "heart and soul" into this new role.

This decision changed his life and India's future. He spent the next 40 years as a scientist and leader at India's top research organizations, DRDO and ISRO. He worked on rockets and missiles, and his great success in this field earned him the famous nickname "The Missile Man of India." He also played a key role in India's 1998 nuclear tests.

But his old dream of flying never completely disappeared. Many years later, he became the President of India, which made him the Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces.

One day, he told the Chief of the Air Force that he still wanted to learn to fly. The Chief arranged for his training. After six months, Dr. Kalam finally achieved his childhood dream. He flew in a Sukhoi Su-30MKI, a powerful fighter jet.

He missed being a pilot by one rank, but he never let that failure define him. Instead, he found a different way to serve his country and even eventually got to fly. His journey shows us that sometimes, a setback is just a redirection to something even greater.