Planes spotted over BITS Pilani Goa Campus

3 min readMar 17, 2023

BITS Pilani Goa Campus is around 5 km from the GOI airport and this makes it a paradise for airplane enthusiasts. The GOI airport is actually a civilian enclave of INS Hansa. It is reserved for military training from 0800 to 1300 hours during which civilian flights are not allowed to operate.

INS Hansa is India’s largest naval air base and it contains many units , which flyby over the campus including:

● Mikoyan MiG-29K fighters

The navy has 45 Mikoyans in its inventory . It is a generation 4+ fighter created by the Sovietş as a supersonic carrier based fighter . It is seen on campus sometimes while it flies by at breakneck speeds and a humongous roar in the sky.

● Kamov Ka-31

The Kamov Ka-31 is a military helicopter originally developed for the soviet navy . The Ka-31 has co-axially mounted contra-rotating main rotors. It has a large, distinctive early-warning radar antenna which can rotate or fold under the fuselage. The landing gear is retractive in order to prevent interference with the radar.

● Beriev A-50

The Beriev A-50 is a Soviet airborne early warning and control aircraft . The A-50 can control up to ten fighter aircraft for either air-to-air intercept or air-to-ground attack missions. The A-50 can fly four hours at 1,000 kilometers (620 mi) from its base at a maximum takeoff weight of 190 metric tons. The aircraft can be refueled by Il-78 tankers.

Heading to civilian aircrafts, 180 civilian flights operate daily , mainly between 1300hrs and 2100 hours because of the naval restrictions

Civilian aircraft that are spotted on the campus include :

● Airbus A320 family

Flights operated by Indigo , Vistara , Spicejet , Gofirst and AirAsia are often seen on campus .

● Charter Planes

Some charter planes operated by Azur air , LOT Polish airlines , TUI airways also land on the Dabolim airport which are sometimes seen from campus .

● Boeing 747

The Boeing 747 is a large, long-range wide-body airliner designed and manufactured by Boeing Commercial Airplanes in the United States . It is used for international routes and is sometimes seen in the skies of BITS Goa .