This sofa feels like your own Airbus seat at home

There’s a surprising number of people who seem to be very comfortable having a decommissioned fighter jet engine in the centre of their living room. Enough, in fact, that Akshay Sharma—former marketing guy and forever aviation enthusiast—has founded an entire décor brand catering to this niche but dedicated demographic.

It began entirely by accident. Sharma, who had been obsessed with planes ever since he was a child, wanted a piece of aviation-themed décor for his Mumbai home. He ordered a wooden propeller from a US vendor, but it never turned up. Frustrated, he decided to make one himself. Sharma spent the next few weeks teaching himself the basics of woodworking in a makeshift studio near his home. The end result wasn’t half bad. “It’s still there by the way,” he laughs. “Obviously not even close to the kind of finish that one would want, but it was my labour of love, so it’s still a prized possession.”

Since then, Sharma has spent several months visiting various artisans to learn the nuances of sculpting, sanding and polishing. Once he had made a neat little collection of propellers that he was ready to show off to his friends, he started getting more orders. One thing led to another, and his weekend passion project took flight as WoodFeather, a décor brand that appeals to a surprisingly robust niche of wooden propellor enthusiasts.

With Airborn by Woodfeather, the arm that deals with refurbished design, Sharma is giving the bones of decommissioned aircraft a whole new lease of life as décor. Think coffee tables fabricated around the spinning compressor rotor of a MiG-21 aircraft, or a sofa set on the drop tank of a fighter jet, or (and this one’s hard to not want) a bar unit made out of a retired galley cart. Pieces sourced from commercial aircraft like a Boeing 737 or an Airbus 320 go for ₹3,00,000 to ₹4,00,000 a piece, while pieces made from retired aircraft, like the 747 or the Jumbo Jet or the MiG-21, can sell for many lakhs. “These are items of history that are not coming back, so there’s a proper resale option to these,” explains Sharma about the investment buys.

It’s understandable, then, that while 20 per cent of Sharma’s customer base comprises genuine aviation buffs like himself, a whopping 80 per cent has nothing to do with the field at all—many are in it for the investment, and for some, it’s simply an undeniably unique statement piece. “Something that you buy for 10 lakhs today could potentially auction for 50 lakhs a couple of years from now, because these aircraft are no longer in service or because the product is just one of its kind in this world.”

For airlines that are looking to get rid of their retired aircraft parts, Sharma’s business is a godsend. His company not only owns the exclusive rights to create Top Gun-branded propellers that ship across the world, but Sharma has also spent six months working with the armed forces to create a 1:2 replica of the iconic World War II Spitfire fighter plane for the Wellington Gymkhana Club in Tamil Nadu.

For the most part, he’s focusing on expanding his customer base. “My first objective is to make this a sustainable business. I have done it with the propellers—I saw it from a time when I could not sell more than two pieces in a month to now, when there’s a two-month waitlist once you order.” Sharma knows his product is niche—in fact, he has no illusions that it will ever be mainstream. Instead, he likens it to the quirky maritime statement pieces that you’re likely to find at a nautical themed bar: ship helms and portholes and the like. “We have to bring aviation to that level,” he adds. “Once we’re there, the sky’s the limit.”