When hobbies take flight
In a bid to encourage the hobby of designing, building and flying of a model plane, helicopter or a drone, Hobby Tech Lanka (HTL) ventured out to support flying enthusiasts through the first online hobby store which propagated the model flying club concept.
Club members flying planes
Sri Lanka’s first online hobby store www.hobbytechlk.net has been at the the forefront in setting up flying clubs that teach youngsters about design, building and fly model planes, drones, cars, 4×4’s and boats. The HTL team realised the importance of proper instruction in flying a model plane and also the dangers without proper knowledge to steer airborne models earlier on.
Accordingly, there are four active radio controlled (RC) flying clubs in Sri Lanka- the two Flying Clubs in Colombo and Negombo in addition to two other clubs set up in the recent past – the ‘Formy Flyers’ and ‘RC Flying Arena’ in Colombo, cater mainly to school children and young adults.
Joint Managing Director of HTL, Gihan Panditaratne says, model flying existed in the country for a very long time and he first started model flying in 1984 at the age of 14. Prior to the war Sri Lanka was very much into flying with alot of people engaging in this activity at leisure, recalls Gihan adding that the war had a huge impact be it hobby flying, sports flying or private flying following the bans and restrictions imposed over safety concerns.
“During the war it was not something that everyone could do. So generations born during that era lost the opportunity. They hadn’t heard about model flying,” he says adding that the end of the war has renewed people’s interest in the flying field.
Gihan
“Those days hobbies involved building and flying model planes or run a car. The fun part was the making of it. Planes, boats or cars were built using wood, aluminium or some plastic covering films and used to power it with miniature engines. However, today the technology has developed so much that you only have to get it off the shelf and plug it with the remote and fly,” Gihan explains.
Few years back, Gihan got together with his business partner Ravith Boteju (who works as a Joint Managing Director at HTL) and some other like-minded friends to start building and flying model planes in Colombo which led to setting up of the first online hobby store in Sri Lanka. Currently it has a physical store and there are plans to set up a second one.
Ravith
“Looking back at the last five years we have come a long way,” says Ravith adding that in 2010 it started as a local business and Hobby Tech Lanka (HTL) was formally registered in 2012 as a limited liability company. Their hobby store now has ready to fly scaled model planes, Remote controlled cars, scaled 4×4 and Remote Controlled boats. The store also has spare parts required to build a remote controlled model or even a robot including servos, electric motors, speed controllers, wheels, Lipo batteries, miniature engines and remote controllers.
The store also sells readymade RC Plane/Trainer kits that enables one to assemble a model, in addition to the state of the art systems for corporates and film makers. HTL is a pet project of Gihan – Ravith duo who’s expertise are in the fields of Geographic Information SystemsGIS (GIS) and Computer Science, with both of them holding Masters Degrees in the respective fields. Keen hobbyists and model flyers they both are, Gihan and Ravith have spent a significant amount of time to off their busy schedules to develop the hobby culture in Sri Lanka.
“As a child I knew what flying was because of the exposure I had. But most of the kids and young adults born afterwards did not have that opportunity. They lost a huge opportunity because of the country’s situation,” says Gihan of the inspiratioon to start the flying clubs.
The pleasure of building and flying a model plane is huge while there is personal development for the child who engages in this activity, according to Gihan. “That is where a young child will learn to respect each other, build self-confidence and learn to share. Model flying helps children develop concentration, their ability to reflect and handle situations. A child joining a flying club gets a whole lot of exposure and not just flying a plane,” he explains adding that for children, model flying could be a stepping stone into a career in aviation.
Explaining the procedure of enrolling at the clubs, Gihan says those interested can either join one of the four flying clubs. The second option would be to develop their own club and receive training from flying experts at Hobby Tech Lanka. “They can set up a school flying club or few individuals can even get-together to form a club in their locality,” he adds.
Hobby Tech also conducts model plane building workshops and demonstrations at special occasions such as birthday parties or family/corporate get to-gethers involving teenagers or young adults. Once the Hobby Tech’s new showroom in Nugegoda opens up, training courses are to be arranged at its training facility in the near future.
For moreinformation log on to hobbytechlk.net