In today’s time when innovation and technology, along with determination and sincerity, meet – the final result is just amazing. During the covid-19 pandemic, all of us were in the zone where innovation and creativity peaked due to unprecedented lockdowns. Some took creativity to a higher notch. Here’s one example – Ashok Alisheril Thamarakshan, a man from Kerala, built a plan so he and his family can travel around Europe.
Thamarakshan built a four-seater aircraft model Sling TSI and named it G-Diya. It works on a single engine. According to media reports, the couple has two daughters, Tara, six and Diya, three. The aircraft is named after the younger daughter.
At present, he lives in London, UK. The project was completed in 1,5000 hours and the total cost of production was 1,40,000 euros (Rs 1,14,00,830 approx). His wife Abhilasha Dubey and he started to save money from the first covid-19 lockdown. Thamarakshan has a pilot license and he worked on the aircraft for the last couple of years in his garden shed.
According to media reports, Thamarakshan said that initially, he used to rent two-seater aircraft for the trips after he got his pilot licence in 2018. But later, he realised that he required a four-seater aircraft to take his family along with him on trips. He mentioned that these four-seaters are rare and whatever he found, those were old. This encouraged him to further research on the creation of a four-seater aircraft which he built later during the covid-19 lockdown.
In order to build his plane, Thamarakshan had to attend the launch party of a new aircraft Sling TSI of Sling Aircraft in Johannesburg. The event took place in 2018. This gave him ideas and takeaways on how to build a plane from the scratch.
According to Thamarakshan, Europe and US are completely fine with home-built aircraft.
