My early schooling days were in Chennai and I used to live in an area that falls under the ILS approach path of runway 30 of VOMM (Chennai’s International Airport, MAA). I used to run to the terrace as soon as I heard an approach to see the majestic flying machine; it was so fascinating and it still is to me. I recall it distinctly; I was able to identify an ATR from other aircrafts by just listening to the engines sound during its approach even without sighting the aircraft.

This is exactly what got me into photography. At a very young age, my favourite timepass was to capture pictures of aircraft during their approach, using my dad’s DSLR. During weekends, my parents used to take me to St. Thomas Mount which was close to the airport and I used to spend hours watching aircraft’s land and take-off. I could literally see the entire runway and airport from the mountain and I had once spotted an Antonov 124 that was stationed at a remote stand. My Dad also used to take me to various plane spotting locations around Chennai airport; my excitement was at its best

My Journey into Aviation and Aerospace

During one of our visits to Pondicherry, my parents took me to “Orient Flight School”, which also happened to be the first time I saw a Cessna 172 and a Piper Seneca III. We also took a joy ride on the Cessna 172 and had an awesome view of Pondicherry city, the beach line and the golden dome at Auroville, Matrimandir. Looking at my enthusiasm, the pilot asked me to be his co-pilot for the fly, with my parents taking the rear seats. That was the most amazing experience I have had flying and I recall every bit of it even today. My parents still make fun of me as I had appreciated the pilot for a good and smooth landing; dude, I was just a kid then; 6-7 years old perhaps...!

At this point, Aircrafts were my newly adopted passion and I started collecting diecast scale models of various aircrafts build by Herpa. Back then I also used to build my own models of aircrafts with the Lego bucket that I had, I still do at times.

It was in June’2017 that my parents took me to witness the Geosynchronous Satellite Launch vehicle, GSLV MkIII (nicknamed ‘Fat Boy’) launch at ISRO, Sriharikota; I took a couple of my friends along. The launch site is a barrier island off the Bay of Bengal cost located in the Shar Project settlement of Tirupati district in Andra Pradesh, India that houses the Satish Dhawan Space Centre, one of the frequently used satellite launch centres in India. That day, I realized that I had discovered a new spark in me and my fascination for Space technology took shape since then.

I was obsessed with Elon Musk’s SpaceX, especially with the Falcon 9 launch vehicle. I was fascinated with the technology, the literal fact that the first stage booster would autonomously and precisely land itself back on a drone-ship somewhere in the middle of the ocean was just insane. This concept of re-using the first stage was a revolution in the Space industry; SpaceX set itself a league apart among competitors. I then started following Elon’s other interests like the Hyperloop, The Boring company and Tesla.

We then moved to Gurgaon and during my MYP1 days, looking at my obsession with Space and Aviation, my parents decided to send me on an educational trip to NASA from school; it was like a dream come true for me. I was the youngest among the group from our school and that was an experience that I would never forget.

Growing up, we relocated to Hyderabad and all along my fascination for Aerospace and Aviation stood tall. Wings India 2022, held at Begumpet Airport, Hyderabad took my interest in the Aerospace industry to a next level as I had an opportunity to see various aircraft models in person that I only had read about and watched videos of online until then. During the exhibition, I met Mr. Mallikarjun who was an ATC trainer and I was very excited discussion with him, you bet, I had tons of questions for him. Judging my curiosity in aviation he offered me a tour to the ATC tower at Begumpet the same day; I couldn’t ask for more, he made it my day...! Suryakiran team had performed their aerobatics maneuvers, that was amazing too. 

One of my other fascinations was to learn and research about radio communication technology and how aircrafts and aerospace vehicles communicate with ground stations. I discovered various technologies that are used today and I ended up laying my hands on an RTL-SDR with which I was able experiment and research on many practical use cases. My research with RTL-SDR led me to create an ADS-B receiver and an antenna that captures data from aircrafts flying nearby at 1090mhz in an ADS-B/Mode-S format that’s then fed into Global online flight tracking applications like FlightRadar24, FlightAware and ADS-B Exchange servers that helps them in triangulating an aircraft location precisely.

As time passed by, my dad had arranged a visit for me at the MRO (Maintenance, Overhauling and Repairing) session at Hyderabad’s Rajiv Gandhi International Airport, one of the best airports in India that I have seen till date. I was lucky to also have an opportunity to visit the ATC tower here too; it was HUGE and I was now practically watching an ATC agents handling real-time aircraft traffic at the airport that I had only done so far virtually playing ATC simulators online; it was an amazing experience.

Then came Wings 2024, it was in January. During the exhibition, I made some good friends from VIT Engineering College who were in their 2nd year of Aerospace Engineering; well, I was just doing my MYP5 (10th Grade), but I really enjoyed their company and even learnt a lot.

This was the first time a Boeing 777x had landed in India, I had an opportunity to get a tour inside the aircraft and the engineering staffs from Boeing were very friendly and walked us through all of the 777x’s new features and what makes it a class apart from its other siblings. The cockpit of the 777x was just AMAZING..!

I also had an opportunity to meet the Sarang team post their aerobatics performance.

I’m interested in the technology that drives the Aerospace and Aviation industry than becoming a commercial pilot, I still hope to get my Private Pilot License (PPL) someday soon. I would love to work in the global aviation technology industry, helping to make it safer and more advanced as I move forward in my education and career.