Chennai: Head to St Thomas Mount, atop the hill, and there is all probability that you will spot someone capturing a plane through their lens. With a clear view of the runway, and therefore the plane’s ascent and descent, the place is a meeting spot for plane spotters in the city.
It’s a small group of five members consisting mainly of college students and a few working professionals. Though from diverse backgrounds, their plane spotting sojourns knit them into a group, which later got popular via the Facebook group, Chennai Plane Spotters. Started by Manoj Kumar, Adithya PC and Daniel, the group has over 200 members discussing planes and sharing photographs of those spotted by them.
“When Air India’s Boeing 787 Dreamliner was launched last year, its first route was between Delhi and Chennai. When it landed here, many aviation enthusiasts had come to check it out. That’s when I met the others,” says Manoj, an engineering graduate. What followed was a series of impromptu meet-ups whenever an international flight came down, leading to hour-long discussions. More recently, the group met at the Air Asia event held in the city in March.
While Manoj uploads his pictures in a blog titled Aviation Photography, for Adithya, around 700 photos form part of his private collection. Each member, Manoj claims, would have around 1,000 photos to boast of. “But it is not about photography at all. Even if the photos are blurred, we would save them. It is all about spotting the plane and saving it as a memory,” says the 22-year-old.
22/05/14 Naveena Vijayan/New Indian Exprerss
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It’s a small group of five members consisting mainly of college students and a few working professionals. Though from diverse backgrounds, their plane spotting sojourns knit them into a group, which later got popular via the Facebook group, Chennai Plane Spotters. Started by Manoj Kumar, Adithya PC and Daniel, the group has over 200 members discussing planes and sharing photographs of those spotted by them.
“When Air India’s Boeing 787 Dreamliner was launched last year, its first route was between Delhi and Chennai. When it landed here, many aviation enthusiasts had come to check it out. That’s when I met the others,” says Manoj, an engineering graduate. What followed was a series of impromptu meet-ups whenever an international flight came down, leading to hour-long discussions. More recently, the group met at the Air Asia event held in the city in March.
While Manoj uploads his pictures in a blog titled Aviation Photography, for Adithya, around 700 photos form part of his private collection. Each member, Manoj claims, would have around 1,000 photos to boast of. “But it is not about photography at all. Even if the photos are blurred, we would save them. It is all about spotting the plane and saving it as a memory,” says the 22-year-old.
22/05/14 Naveena Vijayan/New Indian Exprerss
