‘Saarathis’ for Pawan Hans: Special pilot training course to start from Jan’18

New Delhi, November 24: India’s first course to prepare a commercial pilot for flying helicopter will start in January next year. Government helicopter company Pawan Hans Limited and aircraft maker company Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) will start this course together.

 

For their pilots, Pawan Hans is fully dependent on retired pilots from the army. Some pilots along with retired pilots are from Air Force, Navy and also from the Coast Guard. At the same time, private companies also recruit foreign pilot trained with retired pilots from the Army. This is the first time that a curriculum is being started to prepare the helicopter commercial pilot in the country. At present, there are about 280 helicopters in the country, including Pawan Hans and private companies.

Pawan Hans Chairman and Managing Director BP Sharma said that the first course will start in January next year. In this, the trainees will get practical training on the only heliport of the country, Rohini, Delhi, along with the study of class rooms. At the same time, they will be introduced to the technical parties of the helicopter in Bangalore-based HAL. They will be given information related to the helicopter.

Sharma said that there will be 20 seats in the first batch and 120 applications have been received for this. He told that there is a lot of demand for this course. Also, the number of helicopters in the country will increase rapidly in view of the regional connectivity plan ‘UDAN’. So a large number of helicopter pilots will be needed. He told that the number of seats in the future will be increased in the future.