Daijiworld Media Network - Mangaluru (ANK)

Mangaluru, Jul 29: Vishaan Santhosh Anchan, an aeromodeller hailing from Mangaluru, who recently completed his 12th standard, has built an ultra-light radio-controlled (RC) model aircraft.

Vishaan is the son of Santhosh Kumar and Vidya Santhosh.

For the past five years, Vishaan has been an active aeromodeller and a member of Kinetic Hobbies RC Club. So far, he has built more than 10-15 model aircraft and all have given him wonderful experiences which he can cherish for a lifetime.

Amid the unprecedented times of complete isolation, Vishaan spent his time to build from scratch an ultra-light RC model aircraft. He states that the aircraft took him over 300 hours to build.

Speaking to Daijiworld, Vishaan said, "In the electronic section, there is a high-power brushless motor and an electronic speed controller to control the RPM or the thrust of the propeller. It is powered with a 2,200mAH, 3-cell lithium-polymer battery. To have authority over the control surfaces I have used four micro-servo motors. The transmitter and receiver that I have used works at a frequency of 2.4 GHz and it has a maximum range of 800-1,000mtrs radius."

"The internal structure of the fuselage, empennage and wings are made with Balsa wood (a low-density type of wood). It is then coated with MonoKote - a lightweight heat shrink wrap film. Every part of the aircraft comes from a few sheets of Balsa wood, hand-cut, reinforced, sanded and then covered," he added.

Vishaan maintains that the aircraft is unique when compared to all his previous aircraft models. The reason for the same being the manner in which it is built. The structure is designed based on the principles of physics and civil engineering, and is very identical to the way how most of the real-life light-aircraft are built, Vishaan asserted.

The aircraft was designed for both scale and aerobatic flying and it weighs about 800g and has approximately a 2:1 thrust-weight ratio. It has a wingspan of 1.2mtrs and it has a Clark Y airfoil. This makes it a versatile aircraft. It has a flight time of 10-12 minutes, said Vishaan.

Vishaan has also taken part in several competitions and won several national-level aeromodelling competitions. He is the national-level winner of Aerophilia 2017 held at Sahyadri College, winner of Wright Flight 2019 held at NITK Suratkal. Vishaan also bagged the second place in Skyrush 2020 at MIT Manipal.

He has also participated and qualified for the zonal final round of Boeing National Level aeromodelling competition held at IIT Bombay 2018-19.

Vishaan extended his gratitude to his mentor Vishal Rao for the constant support from the beginning of his journey in the field of aeromodelling. Rao owns a shop called Kinetic Hobbies in Mangaluru, where Vishaan claims to have gained knowledge about the field of aeromodelling. It is this place from where Vishaan has bought all the materials necessary for building the magnificent piece of engineering.