Ashok Aliseril Thamarakshan a mechanical engineer by profession from Kerala and is currently living in the United Kingdom made use of the lockdown to build an aircraft which he used to travel to different countries with his family, is in news now a days.
Ashok Aliseril Thamarakhsan’s Personal Life
Ashok is the son of RSP leader and former MLA A. V. Thamarashan, he did his mechanical engineering from NSS Engineering College, Palakkad and he moved to US in the year 2006 and currently he is working with Ford.
Why Ashok Thamarakshan built an Aircraft?
Ashok said he used to rent two seater Aircraft to go for trips but later, he realised that he required a four-seater aircraft because he has a family of four and if they want to fly together then they need a 4 seater Aircraft.
He mentioned that four-seater Aircraft are hard to find and whatever and those he found were old. This encouraged him to research the creation of a 4 seater Aircraft which he built during lockdown.
How Ashok Thamarakshan built the Aircraft?
In order to build the Aircraft, Thamarakshan attended the launch party of a new aircraft Sling TSI of Sling Aircraft in Johannesburg. The event took place in 2018 and he took ideas from this event and started building his dream Aircraft from Scratch.
During his research he came to know that different parts of the aircraft are already available and all he has to do is to assemble those parts and he will get his dream 4 seater Aircraft.
Cost of the Aircraft
Ashok revealed that if he buys a new aircraft it would have cost him 5-6 crores but as he made it himself the total cost of production was 1,40,000 euros or around 1.4 crores Indian rupees and the project was completed in 1,5000 hours.
His wife Abhilasha Dubey and he started to save money from the first covid-19 lockdown so that they can complete their dream and Thamarakshan had a pilot licence and he worked on the aircraft in his garden shed.
Places Ashok travelled in his Aircraft
Ashok has travelled to several places with family and friends, Ashok has been to numerous locations around the UK on his plane, Ashok has been to Germany and Austria as well. Currently he is in Alappuzha with his family and wishes to take his home built Aircraft to India.
Name of the Aircraft
He named the aircraft G-Diya, after his daughter Diya and G is the country code. After getting permission to fly, Ashok and two of his friends visited France, Germany, Austria and the Czech Republic. As of now, the plane has recorded 86 hours of flight. And Ashok said he is planning more trips after he returns to the UK with his family.
