A pilot aspiring for the Indian Airline Transport Pilot’s License to advance from a First Officer status to captaining an airliner has to work hard to earn it

Responsibility for regulating aviation training and licensing procedures related to aviation in India lies with the Director General Civil Aviation (DGCA). To the credit of the DGCA, its regulatory framework in this regard is diligently drawn up and designed with adequate safety factors built into the system of licensing in such a manner that adequate training becomes predicated to the licensing process. However, there is a problem with manning in DGCA which prevents adequate on-location oversight or even a reassuring system of audit to ensure that the 28 government-run flying institutions and seventeen private flying clubs in India (several of them not functioning at the moment) strictly follow the training philosophy in letter and spirit.

Occasionally, one hears unconfirmed rumours that some of the alumni of these flying schools have far less hands on flying experience in the cockpit than their flying log books proclaim. This problem has now been neutralised by the fact that airlines can pick and choose the best of the lot. One estimate is that there are around 8,000 unemployed CPL holders in India and thus, candidates with weak training background are eliminated during the selection process.

Not all of the 45 flying institutions listed on the DGCA site are functional. The problems hounding them are many. Lack of flying instructors as many have fled to more lucrative airline jobs, poor funding and inadequate infrastructure have stunted their role in training pilots. This had forced many youngsters—disappointed with the prospect of prolonged delays at these institutions—to seek alternatives. Those who could afford it, grabbed slots at flying schools in the US, Australia and Philippines where flying facilities abound and certification rules, in comparison to Indian regimes, are lax. At one point there was a fairly viscous flow of graduates in disciplines not remotely connected with aviation towards flying training in institutions abroad. The end result was an overflow for the system.

New Entrants
There is reason to cheer in the news that Indira Gandhi Rashtriya Uran Akademi (IGRUA) is planning to upgrade its output from 40 to 100 cadets per annum through a management contract with CAE, Canada. This endeavour is supplemented by the setting up of a National Flying Training Institute at Gondia, Maharashtra which will also be run on the lines of IGRUA. Another facility that deserves a mention here is Punj Lloyd’s Chimes Aviation Academy at Dhana, Madhya Pradesh. Punj decided to study the Indian aviation sector extensively and after dropping the idea to start an airline business, started a pilot training academy. With an initial capital investment of Rs 30 crore, the academy is established on the IGRUA model and offers a 12-month course, for which it has the capacity to enroll 120 students a year with a fee of Rs 22 lakh.

Meeting training commitments of airlines is a major activity of the flight operations department. Small airlines remain dependent on hiring of simulators and other facilities but the three affluent ones have been taking steps to enhance their capabilities in the training domain. In April last year, Jet Airways became India’s first airline to get a DGCA approval for its Type Rating Training Organisation (TRTO), thus becoming empowered to conduct endorsement courses and examinations in house ---of course under the supervision of DGCA. Incidentally, the TRTO did not come up overnight but evolved from a training school that was first approved in 1995 by DGCA. Air India too has a TRTO at its Central Training Establishment at Hyderabad for its Airbus A320 and Boeing 737-800 aircraft crew including ab-initio trainee pilots as well as those converting from other types of aircraft. The CTE is of course older than Jet Airways’ school and has been imparting civil aviation related training to airline personnel with qualified instructors, examiners, check pilots and ground instructors. The recognition as TRTO has enabled it to conduct endorsement training, refresher/recurrent training, checks and specialised training for pilots on A310, A320, B737-800 and B747-400 aircraft.

In an interesting and encouraging development, Birla Institute of Technology, Mesra has signed an MoU with the Jamshedpur Cooperative Flying Club to establish a joint venture flying training institute that will provide the flying training required for a new three year B.Sc. (Aeronautical Sciences) degree course proposed to be offered at BIT. The proposed new course will integrate a broad based education with the ground instruction and flying training prescribed by DGCA for the Commercial Pilots License (CPL), which is the basic license required by students aspiring to become commercial pilots. The syllabus is designed in such a manner that will allow the pilots trained under BIT’s programme to take up management positions in the aviation industry. In another development, Bird Group has entered into a deal with France-based simulator manufacturer Alsim to offer its products in India. Alsim’s Flight Training Devices are versatile and compliant with Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and Joint Aviation Authorities regulations. The tie up will definitely provide for more state-of-the-art training facilities in India.