Airports are often named after a person who played a leading role in the country's history, such as New York's John F. Kennedy, Paris Charles De Gaulle and Leonardo da Vinci airport in Rome.

Encouraged by the centenary of the 1911 revolution this year, a group of aviation enthusiasts is proposing "Sun Yat-sen International Airport" as the new name for Hong Kong's own gateway to the sky.

"Not just the father of the nation, you could say he [Sun] was also the father of aviation in China," said Gordon Andreassand, vice-chairman of the Hong Kong Historical Aviation Society.

His speech this month -- at the inauguration of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology's aeronautic-interest group -- sparked a student petition to rename Hong Kong International Airport, better known as Chek Lap Kok airport, after the revolutionary leader.

Jeff Chen Haoran, a first-year student and co-ordinator of the university group, said: "This act of naming can raise more awareness about his contribution to aviation."

In 1923, Sun, with the aid of three American engineers, became the first person to build an aeroplane in China: a two-seat biplane to be used for bombing and reconnaissance work in a country divided by warlords. At its inauguration near Beijing, Sun named the plane Rosamonde, after his wife, better known simply as Soong Ching-ling.

"That was the only aeroplane ever produced in China [before modern times]," Andreassand said.

"The warehouse in Guangzhou mysteriously burned down only a few months after the first flight, and no more were produced."

The original itself was most likely lost in the turmoil that enveloped the mainland in that era, Andreassand said. A replica of the Rosamonde can be found at the China Aviation Museum, near Beijing.

Sun's ties to Hong Kong also make him an ideal candidate, he said. "His mother's actually buried here. And he made a very good speech in the 1920s at the University of Hong Kong, [telling] the students [that] what he learned seeing Hong Kong's progress had a big impact on his philosophies. That's where he got his ideas."

The group plans to send the petition to both the Airport Authority's chief executive, Stanley Hui Hon-chung, and Secretary for Transport and Housing Eva Cheng once the president of HKUST signs the petition. "Of course, it may all come to nothing," Andreassand said. "There could be objections from Beijing about all sorts of things." The mainland has no big airports named after famous historical figures.

The Airport Authority said it had no plans to rename the airport, which takes its name Chek Lap Kok from the small island that was flattened and extended to build the airport in the 1990s.