Country’s first ATR full flight simulator (ATR 72-600-212) was commissioned at the Air India’s Central Training Establishment (CTE) by its Executive Director Amitabh Singh here on Tuesday. The CTE, which already houses two A320 flight simulators for training pilots, has also sought sanction for another similar Airbus simulator in the category.
The new simulator sourced from Canada, but of French make, at a cost of ₹65 crore has been installed in a ‘record’ time of less than six months after being contracted with the machine first arriving by ship to Mumbai and transported by road here.
This new machine got the approval of Director General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) for operations and it will cater to the ATR services being run by Alliance Air, the subsidiary of AI, which already has 13 ATR 72-600 planes in its fleet of 15 aircraft. Five more ATR planes with a seating capacity of about 70 are likely to join next year for running services to tier-two cities. “Our ATR pilots were hitherto being sent to places like Toulouse, Singapore and Bangkok for training at an enormous cost and time. This will help us quicken our training and also provide space to train pilots belonging to the other airlines too,” said Mr. Singh, in an interaction later. “We have recruited 150 pilots and this new simulator has come at the right time for us to help step up operations,” said S. Mehrotra, ED (Ops) Alliance Air.
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The simulator with a state-of-the-art all-electric motion system provides more accurate and authentic cues for pilot training reflecting real-time scenarios. It will help train 10 pilots a day with a full fledged pilot course extending up to 46 hours on the simulator or 16 hours for yearly renewals, besides there will also be short-term courses for special operations like low-visibility take off and likes, he explained. Along with the A320 simulators the CTE trains up to 25 pilots each day. The AI has also Boeing simulators of 737/787/777/747 categories in Mumbai besides technical ground training institute at New Delhi.
The CTE located in 20 acre campus here has a plan for turning into either a deemed university offering specialised courses or go for accreditation with a reputed institute, averred Mr. Singh.