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It wasn't until he moved near to an airfield in the UK over a decade ago that mechanical engineer Ashok Aliseril Thamarakshan began to seriously consider learning to fly a plane. He got his first taste of flying a few years later, when his wife Abhilasha bought him a 30-minute flight experience for his birthday. Aliseril, who is based in Essex, England, booked in some flying lessons at a local airfield and flew to the Isle of Wight, an island off the English south coast, during his first session. Aliseril got his private pilot's license in 2019 . (Ashok Thamarakshan via CNN) "That was quite an eye-opener into how (flying) gives you the freedom to just go places if you have that ability, and access to an aircraft," he tells CNN Travel. "So that really got me hooked." Aliseril got his private pilot's license in 2019 and soon began hiring planes for short flights. Amateur build But as his family grew – he and Abhilasha now have two daughters – the two-seater planes typically available for private hire became even less suitable, and he began to mull over the idea of buying his own plane. Aliseril briefly considered buying an older aircraft, and looked at some that had been built in the 1960s and 1970s. However, he says he felt uneasy about the prospect of flying his family in an older aircraft that he wasn't familiar with, and didn't think it would be a "comfortable journey." Aliseril began to look into the possibility of building a plane himself, reasoning that this would allow him to gain a better understanding of the aircraft so that it would be easier to maintain in the long term. After researching self-assembly aircraft kits, he came across a four-seater plane manufactured by South African company Sling Aircraft that ticked all the right boxes. In January 2020, Aliseril flew to the Sling Aircraft factory facility in Johannesburg for the weekend in order to take the Sling TSi aircraft on a test flight and was so impressed that he decided to purchase it. "This was pre-Covid, where travel was still very easy at the time," he explains. "I ordered the first kit when I got back. And by the time it arrived, the UK was in full lockdown." Aliseril says his colleagues, some of whom had experience with building aircraft, initially offered to help with the build. But the restrictions brought about by the Covid-19 pandemic, which had spread across the world by this point, meant that this wasn't possible. He enlisted his daughters to help. (Supplied/Ashok Thamarakshan) Undeterred, he constructed a small shed in his back garden and planned out the different stages of the project, which would be monitored by the Light Aircraft Association, a UK representative body that oversees the construction and maintenance of home-built aircraft, under an approval from the UK Civil Aviation Authority (CAA). The rules for amateur built aircraft differ slightly from country to country. In the US, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has an experimental airworthiness category where special airworthiness certificates can be issued to kit-built aircraft. Amateur-built airplanes in the UK are investigated by the CAA, who will issue a "Permit to Fly" once satisfied that the aircraft is fit to fly. Although the start of the build was delayed slightly due to the Covid-19 restrictions in place in the UK at the time – the Light Aircraft Association inspector assigned to the project was required to visit his working space beforehand – Aliseril was able to begin in April 2020. While he notes that his engineering background helped in some ways, he believes that it was actually his home improvement experience that proved most useful while constructing the aircraft, which has a length of 7.175 meters and a height of 2.45 meters. "These aircraft kits are designed for any amateur to build, provided you're a bit hands-on and you've got experience working with some specialist tools," he adds, describing the detailed "Ikea furniture type instructions" with drawings that came with the kit. "I would say generally, anyone can get involved in these sorts of builds." Aliseril completed the work himself, drafting in Abhilasha to assist with some of the sections that required more than one pair of hands. Their eldest daughter Tara, now nine, was on hand for tasks such as removing the plastic from each of the components. By the end of summer 2020, Aliseril had built the tail and the wings. He began constructing the fuselage section in October, when the next part of the kit arrived. Although he'd initially planned to hire a workshop to construct the aircraft, Aliseril feels that creating a workspace at his home was the better choice. He constructed a small shed in his back garden and planned out the different stages of the project. (Supplied/Ashok Thamarakshan) "I could just step into the shed and work on it," he says. "So having everything just in the back garden really helped, even though space was tight." Each stage of the project had to be signed off by an inspector before he could move onto the next task – the Light Aircraft Association completed around 12 inspections in total. Once the majority of the components were constructed, and it was time to put the aircraft together, Aliseril moved everything from his home to a hangar near Cambridge for the final assembly and engine fit. The aircraft passed its final inspection a few months later. It was one of the first Sling TSi homebuilt aircraft constructed in the UK. G-Diya, named after his youngest daughter, was signed off for its first flight in January 2022. Aliseril recalls waiting on the ground anxiously as a test pilot took the plane he'd spent 18 months building up into the air. "He took it up for about 20 minutes, and then he came back," he says. "It was a big relief. I couldn't lift my head up to see what was happening (during the test flight)." That first flight was hugely significant in many ways. "With these build projects, everyone calls it a project until it's first flown," he explains. "Once it's flown, it's always called an aircraft. You never call it a project anymore. That's psychologically a big step." When it was time to fly the aircraft for the first time himself, Aliseril was accompanied by another experienced test pilot. While he admits to being decidedly cautious, the test pilot was "throwing the aircraft about as if it was a racing car." G-Diya has a range of 1,389 kilometres. (Supplied/Ashok Thamarakshan) "I was feeling very nervous, I didn't want to put any extra stress on it," Aliseril explains. "But (the test pilot) was really pushing it to the limits. And it was good to experience that. I know that (the aircraft) can handle this much. "Once I landed, (the test pilot) clapped his hands and said 'Congratulations, you've just landed the plane you built.' That was a great feeling." G-Diya, which has a range of 1,389 kilometres, went through a number of further test flights before it was issued with a permit to fly in May 2022. The following weekend, Aliseril flew with his wife and daughters Diya and Tara, five, to the Isle of Wight, where they took a short taxi ride from the airfield to the beach. "The kids were really happy," he says. "So that sort of freedom. And the fact that we could just do that on a Saturday and still be back by 4 p.m. That was a great feeling." They continued taking trips together within the UK, flying to Skegness, a seaside town in eastern England and the village of Turweston in Buckinghamshire, before Aliseril felt comfortable enough to take them a little further afield. Last Easter, the family, who've been documenting their trips on their Instagram account, fly_home_or_away, travelled to Bergerac, France, which Aliseril describes as their "most memorable" trip together. According to Aliseril, G-Diya has flown over 300 hours in the past two years, travelling as far as Norway. The family have been documenting their trips on their Instagram account. (Ashok Thamarakshan via CNN) Family trips For Aliseril, one of the main benefits of the plane, aside from the freedom it provides him and his family, is the friendships he's formed with other pilots. He was always mindful that owning an aircraft could become a financial burden, but has been able to get round this by working out an arrangement to share it with three others. "To get your private license, it costs quite a bit," he adds, before noting that many of those who've taken on similar projects are either retired, or are people "who have the time and financial status" to fund the process. "I kind of knew that from the beginning, and thought I'd take that risk and try to do it myself," he says. "I knew that once it was done, I would easily be able to find people to share that cost. And it's worked out quite well (for me)." "It becomes a communal thing," he says. "You always have somebody to fly with if your family is not available. Also, having other pilots who are friends – you learn from each other."

We ran through an “Airplane!” scenario with the aviation department at the University of North Dakota file_1280x720-2000-v3_1.mp4 Less than a minute into a flight to Omaha, alarms started blaring. From the cockpit, the pilot uttered one worrisome word: “Yikes.” He gripped the side stick, unwittingly disengaging the autopilot, and the plane shot into the clouds. It was a dangerous maneuver for any flight crew member, especially one without any experience. “I have no clue what’s going on,” said Brett Daku, his voice barely registering over the din. Suddenly, WAPO Flight 123 fell silent. Help was on the way. Nick Wilson, an associate professor of aviation at the University of North Dakota, appeared from what would have been first class had we been flying a real plane. He approached the 19-year-old finance major and explained what had happened. “A high-altitude stall is a dramatic event and is broadly avoided,” Wilson said. “You can’t recover from it.” Unless, of course, you are in a flight simulator. Unlike real life, the high-tech training device that replicates the mechanics and challenges of flying has a reset button. It also does not judge or cause harm, except to your ego. In March, we published an article about surveys that showed many Americans think they could land a plane if they had to step in for a commercial pilot. Pilots and aviation experts were less sanguine, though they didn’t outright dismiss the idea. Brett Venhuizen, professor of aviation and chair of the aviation department at the University of North Dakota, in Grand Forks, suggested a way to test the aspirational pilots’ bravado: Stick them in one of the school’s flight simulators. Patrick Miller, a participant in the simulator test at the University of Dakota in Grand Forks, has never flown a plane before. (Andrea Sachs/The Washington Post) Setting up the simulator test At the university’s John D. Odegard School of Aerospace Sciences, students pursuing their pilot’s license log hours in the virtual reality machines. As commercial airline pilots, they will earn their type-rating certification on simulators modeled after specific aircraft. Every six months, they must demonstrate their capabilities to the airline through practice runs in a simulator. For our simulation modeled after an Airbus A320, which typically seats 140 to 170 passengers, our recruits had one objective: to successfully land the aircraft and save everyone onboard. Venhuizen was in charge of rounding up the participants. He chose four men and two women, ages 19 to 67. Four people had zero pilot experience. However, three members of the group (Patrick Miller, Meloney Linder and Daku) had played around with flight simulators and one (Alexa Vilven) had watched YouTube videos of pilots landing planes. We also had two pilots on board: Aaron Prestbo, a physician and recreational pilot from South Dakota, and Brian Dilse, a former airline pilot who worked for a major carrier in Dubai and now teaches at UND. Each participant was separated from the group until their turn, so no one could pick up any tips through observation. At the start of the exercise, Wilson handed each person a boarding pass (Washington Post Airways Flight 123 from Duluth, Minn., to Omaha, a 90-minute flight) and described the scenario: The aircraft’s two pilots were incapacitated for unexplained reasons, and the passenger would have to guide the plane to safety using all the tools available on the flight deck. For the sake of time, he said we would hopscotch over a few steps, such as accessing the code to the locked cockpit, removing the pilots’ bodies and adjusting the seat. He dropped an important hint: The pilots may or may not have been wearing some type of head gear. He was referring to the headset, an essential piece of equipment for communicating with ground personnel. Everyone entered the scene at the same point in the flight and with identical conditions. The plane was flying level at 20,000 feet, with overcast skies at 1,000 feet, calm winds and no rain in the forecast. The sky was eerily empty. And with that, Wilson wished the pilots good luck. How the novices did in the simulator Unlike nearly a third of the respondents in a YouGov survey from January, none of the novice pilots in our experiment claimed to be confident they could land a plane. Miller, a 67-year-old communications editor at UND, said his interest in World War II plane simulators might help, but he worried that he would crumble during landing. When asked if he would jump up to assist in an emergency, Daku, the college student, said he would see if another passenger would volunteer first. If no one did, he’d step in with low expectations. “Probably I will end up crashing the plane,” he said, “but who knows?” Miller was the first to fly and he immediately started asking questions, even though he had not put on the headset. Wilson and Matt Opsahl, a UND instructor, broke scene to reply. Eventually, they ceased all communication. “You’re not answering any of my questions,” Miller said, as he squinted at the primary flight display. “I’m fully on my own.” Miller porpoised through the clouds, ascending and descending several thousand feet. Thankfully, the simulator didn’t have the full motion feature, or at least one of us would have needed a bucket. Alarms shrilled and chirped after he disengaged the autopilot and hit the service ceiling, preventing the plane from flying any higher. Wilson entered the cockpit with the bemused-but-patient expression of a pee-wee coach. “This could go on for as long as we have fuel,” he said, “which could be four or five hours.” To move the test along, the instructors programmed the coordinates to the Minneapolis airport, the site of our emergency landing. Below, the flat Midwestern landscape fanned out to the fake horizon. Miller switched to manual and the plane wobbled like a baby bird thrown from its nest. The aircraft thumped to the ground but continued to roll over another runway and into what appeared to be a field. “It’s unlikely that the gear would be intact,” Wilson said. But on the bright side: We would have all survived. Result: Success Meloney Linder takes a seat in the flight simulator. (Andrea Sachs/The Washington Post) Linder, a 51-year-old vice president of communications and marketing for UND, made several smart decisions from the get-go, such as slipping on the headset and, for the most part, remembering to press the radio transmitter button when speaking. “WAPO123, this is Minneapolis ATC,” Opsahl said in his role as an air traffic controller. “We noticed that your altitude is deviating a lot. If you’re on comms, respond please.” She also made several mistakes, including a biggie that ended the game. “Oh, crap!” she exclaimed when an automated message warned, “Stall, stall, stall.” “I’m crashing.” In addition to deactivating the autopilot, Linder stalled, meaning the wings can no longer produce a lift, and banked, or caused the aircraft to list to one side — a hopeless situation. “I have so much respect for my pilots right now,” she said. Result: Fail Watching YouTube tutorials paid off for Vilven, a 31-year-old accountant for the university. Without missing a beat, she reached for the headset and called for help. Air Traffic Control: “Is there an emergency?” Vilven: “I believe so.” Air Traffic Control: “Are you able to fly the aircraft?” Vilven: “Uh, no.” Air Traffic Control: “WAPO123, we’re going to do our best to help you.” Vilven: “Gotcha.” Opsahl and Wilson, who was pretending to be a pilot sharing the same airspace, provided Vilven with the altitudes and air speeds needed to approach the Minneapolis runway. With their guidance, she lowered the flaps to slow the aircraft and dropped the landing gear. When she was within shouting distance of the runway, they advised her to deactivate autopilot. “I think I’m too high,” she said, as she missed the runway and the plane started to ascend. “I’m going up. I’m in the clouds.” A warning system activated: “Bank, bank, bank.” Air Traffic Control: “We don’t know what WAPO is doing.” Result: Fail Brian Dilse, a commercial airline pilot who teaches at UND, was a pro in the cockpit. (Andrea Sachs/The Washington Post) How the recreational pilot did in the simulator Before entering the simulator, Prestbo, a 47-year-old physician, said he would volunteer to land a plane in emergency, just as he would raise his hand to help an ill passenger. But he had a few concerns, which he later admitted had caused his leg to shake inside the simulator. “I am more confident about flying versus landing,” said Prestbo, who earned his private pilot’s certificate in 1997 and flies single-engine planes for fun. He was also worried about the unfamiliar dials, switches and levers in the cockpit. “This is out of my comfort zone,” he said as searched the panel for the radio. Luckily, he found it and connected with air traffic control and the other pilot. The pair fed him information each step of the way. Less than a half-hour into the flight, the sky started to brighten and the ground materialized below. A few miles from the runway, he disconnected the autopilot. “Okay, I have control, such that it is,” he said. “It’s real now.” The plane swayed slightly, but two minutes later, it was solidly on the ground. It took much longer for his leg to relax. Result: Success How the commercial pilot did in the simulator Dilse, who has cargo and passenger flight experience, was the one participant who had every right to be confident. And yet he wasn’t. When presented with the imaginary scenario, the 39-year-old responded, “Hopefully there is someone that actually worked for the airline and was more experienced than me with the airline. I’m not going to be the first one to jump and say, ‘I’m here to save the day.’ I’m not going to be a superhero.” He was also uncomfortable with the idea of flying solo. “You need two pilots to operate this aircraft,” he said. “So when you ask if I feel confident, I’d be lying if I said yes.” Even so, he approached the mission with a high level of professionalism and self-possession. He practiced the guiding principles of flying — aviate, navigate and communicate — and followed the advice of a British Airways instructor who recommends taking five seconds to sip “your tea” to avoid making any rash decisions. Dilse’s advanced aviation skills allowed him to tap into the plane’s sophisticated navigational and technical systems. Unlike the other pilots, he also considered a multitude of factors that could influence the outcome, such as the amount of fuel, the weather at the Minneapolis and Omaha airports, and the maximum landing weight. For his own safety, he wondered what had caused the pilots to fall ill. Depending on the answer, he might need to wear a gas mask or avoid the chicken entree. He also requested medical services to meet the plane on the runway. When he could see the ground, he set the autobrake and informed air traffic control that he could take it from here. “I’m pretty comfortable with what’s happening now,” he said. Dilse landed the plane as smoothly as a butterfly alighting on a leaf. He stopped the aircraft and cut the engines. Then he activated the PA system and spoke to the passengers. “Ladies and gentleman,” he said calmly, “everyone please remain seated.” Result: Success Takeaways from the simulations Based on our simulator experiment, no inexperienced traveler should ever volunteer to land a plane in an emergency. Even with a prodigious amount of guidance, which Wilson said was highly improbable in a real-life scenario, our recruits still cratered. However, if there are no other options, remember these invaluable lessons. Never disengage the autopilot (don’t move the side stick or press the red button). Put on the headsets and hold the switch when you speak. And take five seconds to sip your proverbial tea. The private pilot, who flew the plane with a clear head, deft hand and trembling leg, surprised the experts. “I didn’t think it was gonna go that well at all,” Opsahl said. As expected, the former airline pilot aced the test. “He did all the things that you would expect a professional aviator to do,” Wilson said, “and that led to a successful, honestly, relatively boring sequence of events compared to our other participants.” In the event of an airplane emergency, we can all hope for boring.