Mechanical engineer Ashok Alisel Thamaracshan started to get serious about learning to fly planes after he moved near an airfield in the UK more than 10 years ago.
His first experience of flying came a few years later, when his wife Abhilasha gave him a 30-minute flight as a birthday gift.
Aliceril, who is based in Essex, England, booked flight lessons at a local airfield and flew to the Isle of Wight, off the south coast of England, for her first session.
“It was a real eye-opener to see that if you had the ability to fly and had access to an aircraft, you could get on an airplane and go wherever you wanted,” he told CNN Travel. “And then I really got into it.”
Aliceril got her private pilot’s license in 2019 and soon began renting planes for short flights.
Amateur Build
Engineer Ashok Aliseril spent 18 months building the four-seater plane with the help of his daughter during the pandemic. – Courtesy of Ashok Tamarakshan
But as his family grew (he and Abhilasha now have two daughters), privately rented two-seater planes became increasingly inconvenient, so he began thinking about buying his own plane.
Aliceril briefly considered buying older aircraft, looking at several planes built in the 1960s and 1970s.
But he was nervous about flying his family in an unfamiliar, old plane and thought it wouldn’t be a “comfortable journey.”
Aliceril began to explore the possibility of building his own plane, which he felt would give him a better understanding of the craft and make it easier to maintain in the long term.
After researching build-it-yourself aircraft kits, he came across a four-seater plane made by South African company Sling Aircraft that checked all his boxes.
In January 2020, Aliseril visited the Sling Aircraft factory facility in Johannesburg over the weekend to test fly a Sling TSi aircraft and was so impressed that he decided to buy one.
“This was pre-COVID, when travel was still very easy,” he explains, “so when I got back I ordered my first kit, and by the time it arrived the UK was in full lockdown.”
Aliceril said colleagues with aircraft manufacturing experience initially offered to help with the build, but restrictions imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic, which had by this point spread across the world, made that impossible.
Undaunted, he built a small shed in his back garden and planned out the various stages of a project that would be approved by the UK Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) and overseen by the Light Aircraft Association, the UK’s representative body overseeing the building and maintenance of home-made aircraft.
Regulations regarding amateur-built aircraft vary slightly from country to country. In the United States, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has an experimental airworthiness category, which allows it to issue special airworthiness certificates to kit-built aircraft.
In the UK, amateur-built aircraft are inspected by the CAA, which issues a “License to Fly” if it determines the aircraft is fit to fly.
Although the start of construction was delayed slightly due to COVID-19 restrictions then in force in the UK (light aircraft association inspectors assigned to the project had to visit the workspace in advance), Ariceril was able to break ground in April 2020.
While he acknowledges that his engineering background helped him in some ways, he believes it was his experience in home renovation that helped him most when building the 7.175m long, 2.45m tall plane.
“These aircraft kits are designed to be buildable by any amateur with some hands-on ability and experience with specialist tools,” he added, describing the detailed “IKEA furniture-like instructions” with drawings that come with the kits.
“Generally speaking, I think anyone can get involved in this kind of build.”
Lockdown Project
He built a shed in the garden to complete the structure. – Courtesy Ashok Tamarakshan
Alicelil completed the work alone, with help from Abirasha where more than one hand was needed, while their eldest daughter Tara, now 9, helped with tasks such as removing the plastic from each piece.
By the end of summer 2020, Aliseril had assembled the tail and wings, and began assembling the fuselage in October when the next part of the kit arrived.
Although they had initially planned to rent a workshop to build the planes, Aliseril felt that setting up a workshop at home was a better option.
“You just go in and work in your shed,” he says, “so even though we don’t have a lot of space, having it all in the backyard has been really helpful.”
Each stage of the project had to be approved by an inspector before moving on to the next task, and the Light Aircraft Association completed about 12 inspections in total.
Once most of the parts were complete and it was time to assemble the plane, Ali Cerrill moved all the parts from his home to a hangar near Cambridge for final assembly and engine installation. The plane passed its final inspection a few months later.
It was one of the first Sling TSi home-built aircraft built in the UK. Named after his youngest daughter, G-Diya was approved for first flight in January 2022.
Aliceril remembers waiting anxiously on the ground for the test pilot to take to the sky the plane he had spent 18 months building.
Ali Cerrill’s home renovation experience helped it create the four-seater Sling TSi aircraft. – Courtesy Ashok Tamarakshan
“He flew for about 20 minutes and then came back,” he said. “It was a huge relief. I couldn’t lift my head to see what was going on (during the test flight).”
That first flight was extremely significant in many ways.
“With any of these construction projects, everyone calls it a project until it flies for the first time,” he explains. “Once it flies, it’s always called an aircraft. You don’t call it a project anymore. That’s a big psychological step.”
When it came time for Ali Seril to fly the plane for the first time himself, he was accompanied by another experienced test pilot.
While acknowledging that the test pilot was clearly being careful, he said he was “throwing the plane around like it was a race car.”
“I was very nervous. I didn’t want to put any extra strain on myself,” Aliceril explains, “but[the test pilots]were pushing it to the limits. It was good to experience that. I know what[the plane]is capable of.”
“When we landed, (the test pilot) clapped me and said, ‘Congratulations, the plane you built just landed.’ It was an amazing feeling.”
The G-Diya, which has a range of 1,389 km, underwent several more test flights before being issued a flight permit in May 2022.
The following weekend, Aliceril flew to the Isle of Wight with his wife and five-year-old daughters Diya and Tara, and took a short taxi ride from the airport to the beach.
“The kids loved it,” he said. “It gave them that freedom. And to be able to do it on a Saturday and be home by 4 p.m. was a great feeling.”
They continued to travel around the UK together, flying to the seaside town of Skegness in the east of England and the village of Turweston in Buckinghamshire, before Aliceril decided it was time to take them a little further afield.
Last Easter, the family, who document their trips on Instagram account fly_home_or_away, traveled to Bergerac in France, a trip that Aliceril describes as “the most memorable we’ve ever taken as a family.”
Aliseril said G-Diya has logged more than 300 flying hours in the past two years, even flying as far as Norway.
Family Travel
The aircraft, which has a range of 1,389 km, was issued a flight permit in May 2022. – Courtesy Ashok Tamarakshan
For Aliseril, one of the main benefits of flying, besides the freedom it gives him and his family, is the friendships he’s made with other pilots.
He was always mindful that owning an aircraft could be a financial burden, but was able to get around this issue by making an aircraft-sharing arrangement with three other people.
“It’s quite costly to get a personal license,” he added, noting that many of those who have taken on similar projects are retirees or people “who have the time and financial position” to fund the process.
“I knew that from the beginning and was willing to take the risk and do it myself,” he says, “and I knew that once I did it, it would be easy to find people to share the costs. And it worked out pretty well (for me).”
“It becomes like a community,” he says. “Even when you don’t have family, you always have someone to fly with, and when you have other pilots who are friends, you can learn from each other.”
Now, with the plane split evenly between four people, “the cost is about the same as an SUV,” Aliceril adds.
“In the air it’s very fuel efficient, using around 20 litres of unleaded fuel per flight hour,” he says, “so fuel costs are roughly the same as travelling by car.”
Aliceril said the cost of building it was about 80,000 pounds ($91,000) for the kit, plus additional costs for the avionics, the plane’s Rotax engine, propellers and other consumables, bringing the total to about 180,000 pounds ($203,000).
Because there was no hangar space available at the airfield near his home, Aliceril decided to build a new hangar at an airfield in Essex, with the new hangar due for completion in early 2023.
Aliseril hopes to see more young people take on such projects in the future, with aircraft co-ownership seen as a way to increase cost-efficiency and form connections in the aviation industry.
This article was first published in 2022 and updated in 2024.
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