My Obsession with Flight

I've always been fascinated by flight. One of my first books ever was a picture book of the Mirage series of fighters by Dassault. The first things I built with Lego blocks were machines and aircraft and my first science experiments were on airfoils. I tried building powered aircraft for several years in my early childhood but never succeeded. When I was 10, my uncle bought me a Guillow's rubber band powered model of the T-6 Trojan. I began playing with flight simulators when I was 9, my first sim being Microsoft FS 98. Over the next decade and half I ended up spending countless hours immersed in virtual flight on FS 98, FS 2000, FS 2002 and FS X.

AH-64A Apache, US Army

A-10A Warthog, USAF

The next three years were spent fiddling around with my own designs using balsa wood sheets. I experimented with vertical take- off designs, tailless deltas, forward swept wings, canards, glider-like configurations, swept wings with various degrees of sweep, etc . Later, I built a Messerschmitt Bf-109 with a kit, which eventually disappeared with time. Then entered the mammoth B-17 project . It had thousands of parts and was never completed . A four engined bomber was just too much!

MiG-21M, Indian Airforce

MiG-29A, Indian Airforce

CVN-70 USS Carl Vinson
aircraft carrier, US Navy

Then entered a phase of kit-building. I was building Academy scale display models, Guillow's powered models, Megatech's R/C choppers and my own DIY designs. One of the Megatech choppers crashed from three storeys and disintegrated. I began loving the scale and detail of the Academy models, eventually building five of them. They were the Soviet Sukhoi Su-27UB Flanker, Indian MiG-29A and MiG-21M, A-10A Warthog of the USAF and the USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier. They took the punishment of time but were finally repaired to the original state. Other static models in the collection included a Russian Ka-52 Alligator, Chinese MiG-17 and an AH-64A Apache.

Cessna 170

P-51D Mustang, USAAF

P-40 Warhawk, US Navy

A6M Zero,
Imperial Japanese Navy

The powered aircraft fleet consisted primarily of Guillow's models. German Bf-109G, Japanese A6M Zero, Canadian DHC-1 Chipmunk, Cessna 170, P-40 of the US Navy, P-51D Mustang of the USAAF and a Guillow's own  1960s design, the Lancer. The static models from Guillow's consisted of the F-16 and the F-14. The F-16 bore some damage with time. The Zero and P-40 have torn tissues and the Bf-109 was completely lost . The DHC-1 had been gifted to a friend about 4 years ago. The main star of my fleet was (and still is) the Megatech Housefly II. It was one of the first models featuring a coaxial counter-rotating rotor system and was thus capable of indoor flight. This was the state-of-the-art in 2006. Flying this was a charm at Indira park in those days. It was even capable of table-top operations. 

F-14A, US Navy

The photo collection

Its not just modelling that interested me. I was a keen collector of aircraft photos. I personally shot almost every aircraft in IAF inventory; Su-30, the MiG series, Hawk, An-32, Il-76, Suryakiran team, Chetaks and Mi-17s, Dorniers, Maruts, Hunters and Seakings. My collection also included every aircraft in the Boeing and Airbus line and from every major airline; Air India, Thai, Singapore, United, Emirates, Air Canada  to name a few. Being a biker at IISc helped me this way and I often ride up to the runway of the Yelahanka airforce base to shoot the landing Dorniers, Ilyushins and Avros. Transport aircraft of German, Soviet and British origins operating in the same base!

Antonov An-32, Indian Airforce. Shot moments from take off at Yelahanka.

At the helm of a chopper

Megatech

I've always resisted being an aerospace engineer, preferring to study my own designs at my own pace and for its own sake. I'd prefer to be a hobbyist, rather than a professional when it comes to aviation. Perhaps thats one of the charms of flight. Its captivating and truly inspirational in its own way, exerting its undulating influence on many a creative mind. And this might be the reason why most pioneers of aviation were hobbyists to start with.