Aerophilia 2019, a two- day National Level Aeromodelling Competition took off today, 20th Sep’19 in the campus. The event has its primary goal to implant ideas of aeromodelling and aerospace in young minds and to encourage young talents to explore more. Aerophilia consists of 20 different events with exciting cash prizes. About 1,000 students from various schools and colleges across India including IITs and NITs have participated in the programme. The main attraction of the event this year is the Hackathon conducted by ISRO exclusively at Aerophilia on the Navic chip.

The Chief Guest of the event Cdr T R A Narayanan of Indian Navy, who is also a prime member of Aeromodelling Association of India, appreciated the enthusiasm of the students in organizing and participating in the event. He was impressed by the paper plane competition and said, “Paper planes are not just for kids. The aerodynamics that goes into the simple planes is also high level of aerodynamics”.

Mr. Maneesh Saxena and Mr. Akhileshwar Reddy, Deputy Directors of Industry Interface under Satnav program by ISRO were also present during the occasion. Mr. Ashwin L Shetty who was the Composite Manager at Airbus Helicopters in China also spoke on the occasion.

Mr. Manjunath Bhandary, Chairman while addressing the gathering said – “The intention of this event is to ignite the minds of young Engineers and to create awareness on the advancing technologies in the field of Aerospace”.

The event was called open by the Guests by giving a throttle and a RC plane flying high in the air with the Aerophilia banner.

This was followed by the Air Shows by Mr. Abhay Pawar and Mr. Ragavendra B S, who are both professional RC flyers. The schedule for Day One of Aerophilia had technical events like Aeromodelling, Drone Race, Water Rocket and Tug of Bots and also the Hackathon conducted by ISRO Scientists. Fun events like Treasure Hunt, Rubik’s cube and CS GO were also held.

The day concluded with cultural programme which included a concert by Team Martians and a Stand-up comedy by Mr. Mandar Bhide from Bingo Comedy Adda.