the founding of the hyderabad state aero club ushered in an era of relative decorum and the unchecked exploits of buccaneering aviation pioneers of the city were finally tamed to a large extent over succeeding years babar mirza and p m reddy matured into serious aviators who took on the task of ensuring that aviation in the deccan kept pace with international trends their enthusiasm for flying inspired others to take up the hobby and also hastened the plans of the nizams government to establish an airline aban pestonji chenoy the teenaged daughter of the nizams mint master became the first woman member of the hyderabad state aero club to qualify for an aviators license in 1938 a year in which 55 of the clubs 70 members were indians the clubs operations were suspended during world war ii and its pilots aircraft and facilities were commandeered for use by a training squadron the association of begumpet with the air force has continued ever since the acute need for pilots during the war resulted in the establishment of a center of the indian air training corps on the osmania university campus in 1945 trained by hyderabads own pilots along with british officers cadets of the very first batch passing out from the osmania university made such a strong impression on the recruiting board that a majority of them were recommended for a commission in the air force princess durru shehwar laid the foundation stone for the passenger terminal at begumpet in 1936 as part of the nizams silver jubilee celebrations and deccan airways limited was incorporated in 1945 becoming the first airline to be promoted by a native state a joint venture of hyderabad state and tata airlines deccan airways had a fleet of a dozen douglas dc3 dakota aircraft when hyderabad was absorbed into the indian union in 1948 it was with pingle madhusudhan reddys encouragement that the last nizam mir osman ali khan first boarded an aircraft for a sortie over the city intended to check out his reactions to flying initially thrilled at being able to view from the skies the nizam is said to have later issued orders prohibiting any aircraft from flying over his palace on one of his later flights in a twin engine aircraft he enquired from pm as to what would happen if an engine conked off during flight not a problem your exalted highness pm replied we can safely carry on with the remaining engine years later when boarding a flight for delhi he pointed to the four engines of the super constellation and exclaimed now that is what i call a safe aeroplane by 1947 deccan airways had a fleet of sturdy douglas dc3 dakota aircraft which connected hyderabad with key cities through regular services apart from scheduled flights the airline also took on charters and diplomatic sorties on behalf of the nizam and his government the airline continued to serve the ruler of hyderabad in his capacity as the rajparmukh