Rare achievement by Coimbatore Students
Manned gliders are a common feature in the field of aviation. Unmanned gliders and their making are however not that common in India. Yet, J. Prabin Joel and Kiran Balasubramanian, third year aeronautical engineering students from Park College of Engineering and Tekhnology, have made a rare achievement in the field of unmanned gliders.The novice glider makers have emerged winners of the national-level glider competition held at the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, recently. Their four-feet creation made out of Balsa wood, which flies by chucking, made them winners from among the 64 teams that participated nationwide.Prabin and Kiran who developed interest in gliders in their second year of graduation, started out by making them out of paper, then out of thermocol. Once they had the right specifications and were confident of their mastery, they tried making gliders out of Balsa wood. They stood at a height of three feet from the ground level to chuck the glider.
To their misfortune, they found that there were no professional glider-making instructors in the country who could guide them in the right direction. All that they have learnt about glider making has come from browsing the Internet. "We are very eager to undergo formal training, but are unable to identify the right source. We keep in touch with students with similar interests and share tips," they echo sadly.
Their knowledge in subjects like fly dynamics and aero dynamics has helped them to a great deal. They are keen to move ahead and make mini air vehicles (MUVs) with a minimum weight of five kg. Their ultimate goal is to make remote control power gliders that will be used for environmental purposes as well as for surveillance. They plan to go abroad for higher studies on the subject of glider making. "We will come back to India after our master's degree. We will attempt to create new technologies indigenously in aeronautical engineering to make our country stop importing such technologies", they say.
The teenagers get whole-hearted support from their parents, teachers and college management in the endeavours. But, how do they manage for finance? In addition to the cash purse they got at IIT Kanpur, they have received an additional Rs. 5,000 each from the college, which they have pooled in for further experiments."We have an urge to delve into unexplored fields. We are also working on a study in the field of Astro-Physics about negative mass created on earth. Later on we would like to work on relativity theories. Our long-term aim will be towards getting a combined Nobel Prize, nothing short", they end on a final note.
