Dauphin Pilots to make city their playing field

BANGALORE: Helicopter pilots from India and abroad, flying the Dauphins will find a new abode to hone their flying skills — swiftly, surely and safely — at the Helicopter Academy to Train by Simulation of Flying (HATSOFF) in Bangalore. The facility, a  joint venture (JV) project between Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) and CAE-Canada, will throw open a Dauphin 365 N3 simulator to helicopter pilots, after it is evaluated and qualified by the Civil Aviation Authorities (CAA) of the UK on behalf of European Aviation Safety Authority (EASA) and the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) of India. Once this qualification is in (likely any time now), HATSOFF will join the exclusive league of very few simulator training institutions in the world (United States, Europe and Singapore) who can boast of six synthetic training devices for helicopters. At the end of this qualification phase, expected to be completed by the third week of December 2011, HATSOFF will have the Bell 412 EP, HAL civil/conventional Dhruv and the Eurocopter’s Dauphin 365 N3 units — all certified as Level D, FFS/FFMS (Full Motion/Full Mission Simulators), which is the highest qualification for flight simulators in the world. HATSOFF is also approved to impart training for under slung operations and rescue hoist operations.Both of these operations are expected to be exploited by the Indian industry, as is being commonly done in the West. “The visuals of the simulators already have the rooftop helipads. We will be ready to train pilots for rooftop operations, which are bound to become popular in India in the near future. Approval for imparting such training is expected to be granted by the DGCA very soon,” says Wing Commander (Retired) C D Upadhyay, CEO, HATSOFF.