When a dream takes wing

UDUPI: Three months ago, Drithi took to the skies, gliding over the serene waters of the Shambhavi, in Hejamady village in coastal Karnataka. Sleek and shiny, the lean, mean, human-made machine was Pushparaj Ameen’s decade-old dream come to life. Pushparaj developed Drithi, a lightweight five-metre-long micro seaplane, with seven other aeromodelling enthusiasts. All the work was pretty much done in his backyard.

“If you ask me where we made this seaplane, the answer would be: My backyard. We had nothing that could be called a sophisticated workshop. We had a very limited number of tools, but plenty of ideas. The fabrication was done on the terrace and we assembled it in my backyard,” Pushparaj (38) says.Cut to Shayani Rao, a lecturer at a private engineering college in Mangaluru. “I was surprised at how aeronautical engineering is taught in classrooms. There is no practical exposure. So, I decided to get in touch with someone who could give my students and me hands-on experience in building a plane. That’s when I met Pushparaj Ameen,” Shayani says. 

Pushparaj studied engineering at Vijaya College in Mulki, and graduated in 1992. He worked with ENR Model Aircraft in Bengaluru for several years before becoming an NCC instructor. For the past 10 years, he has researched seaplanes to figure out their weight-lifting capacity, glide ratio, materials required, and other nitty-gritty. 

One person got in touch with another and soon, aeromodelling enthusiasts Vinaya U, Vasuraj Ameen, Abhishek M Kotian, Ustav Umesh, Reshma G Bangera, Shayani Rao and Ashwini Rao connected with Pushparaj and they began to work together in November 2019. One year of hard work resulted in a single-seater 120-kg plane with a wingspan of 35 feet, built with mostly locally available materials and aviation grade aluminium, extruded foam, fibre cloth and a 33HP Italian-made engine. 

“There were times when we found faults while developing the plane, and had to do course correction,” Pushparaj says. However, all’s well that ends well. Drithi has currently logged seven hours of flight along the backwaters of the Shambhavi river. It does not require any permissions as the aircraft’s flying height is just 15 feet. It can be upgraded into a two-seater plane with a 50HP engine, Pushparaj says. 

While a crowdfunding campaign fetched them Rs 15,000, the group members pooled in their own money for most of the Rs 7 lakh that the seaplane cost, said Vinaya U, a trainee pilot at Blue Ray Aviation in Gujarat. Now that their dream seaplane is a reality, they are looking at what uses it could be put to. “We want to make different types of seaplanes that could be used for tourism and defence. But due to financial constraints, our research is delayed. We hope the government supports us as the seaplane can transform tourism, defence and calamity management,” Vinaya says.

Pushparaj chips in: “The aviation sector in our country must be taken to the next level. For that to happen, revolutionary innovations should be encouraged. The government must boost the morale of young researchers like us.”While they hope for support from the government, they too are willing to share their knowledge with students and anyone else willing to learn.