Aeromodeling Club Of Hyderabad

If you thought aero-modeling had anything to do with the school afternoon amusement of making Origami gliders with a sheet of notepaper torn from a book, you'd better keep your mouth shut around the members of Hyderabad's aero-modeling club. Though they may deny it rather modestly in an effort be encouraging, aero-modeling really IS rocket science.

Try making an airplane, and you will soon find out. This is the hobby where you spend about Rs. 23,000 just getting started. That's how much the beginners kit would come to. And if your plane crashes, God forbid, you can choose to forget the hobby or spend that money all over again. Definitely not a "do it yourself with your pocket money and old matchboxes from the dustbin" hobby.

All this does not deter our friends in Hyderabad (about 22 of them) from making and flying a variety of airplanes as members of the Aero-Modeling Club. Putting your plane up in the air means knowing all about ailerons, engines, rudders, differentials, gyros, servos and more. It looks like a hobby for eggheads only, but you will find people from the media, music, medicine and mechanical engineering here.

Started in 2004, this Hyderabad chapter of SOAR (Students Organization of Aviation and Rocketry) aims to help newbies get started with making planes. There is no membership fee (small mercy), and it is mostly about getting together, learning and setting your planes on flight. They have seminars and workshops as well, and meet every Sunday at YMCA, Secunderabad.