"A large section of people in Nepal have a dream of boarding an aircraft". This is a quote, not by me, nor by Einstein.
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(Source: http://es.memegenerator.net/instance/48658756)
It is the quote by the Former Minister for Tourism and Civil Aviation of Nepal, Mr. Jiwan Bahadur Shahi. It may be pretty common to travel in an aero plane abroad but it's not the same here in Nepal. Half the population hasn't even seen the aero plane. In Nepal, there are few domestic airports and one international airport. And of course, it needs ticket to board and travel in an aero plane. Here is the story of how I got into a plane without tickets.
(Source: )
Without knowing much about engineering, my aim was to become an Engineer right from childhood. Slowly, my interests towards aeronautical engineering increased. There was no aeronautical engineering course in Nepal. So, I studied the closest one; Mechanical engineering. In the third year, I along with my friends had participated in the AIAA design competition. In this competition, we had designed "Light Family Business Jet". We were not the finalists but we learnt a lot from this competition. The Professor who had supervised this project was convinced of our interest in Aeronautics. One day, our professor called us. He told us about the aviation museum being built and told we could help them.
The aviation museum is located in Sinamangal, Kathmandu. It will be open to general public after few months. There was a huge airplane frame. The plan was to make a park and keep models of different aero planes inside that plane. We were there to help in assembling the model aero plane parts.
How did they get airplane frame?
On 4th of March 2015, Turkish airlines plane Airbus A330-303 had skidded off the runway while landing in Tribhuwan International Airport. The passengers were evacuated safely with minor bruises. The air frame was bought to make aviation museum.
A picture of me at the Museum:
I observed all the parts i.e. engine, engine nacelle, wings, landing gear, aileron, rudder, elevator etc. It really felt good to observe all in real. I had not touched and boarded aero plane from near till now. After watching every parts carefully, I went inside the plane.
It is inside of the plane. All the aero plane models will be kept inside plane.
Conclusion
with this I broke my airplane virginity (more like second base though). It was great visit to the museum though it was in built in phase. Got to know a lot of things and touched the real thing. In future, all the students of Nepal would get chance to observe this. I hope this will increase their interest in aeronautics. It will be free for class IX to XII students. With park outside and model aero planes inside real aero plane frame, it will be good destination to visit in future days.