Pawan Hans sets up aircraft maintenance training institute at Mumbai

India’s aviation sector has been witnessing tremendous growth for the past few years. The helicopter sector has grown at the rate of 10 – 12 % per annum. Between 2007 till date 26 new helicopters have entered Indian skies. As on date there are more than 250 civil registered helicopters in India and it is expected that more than 300 new helicopters will be added by year 2012. The helicopter industry is facing operational bottlenecks due to insufficient skilled manpower. There are issues like lack of training schools providing industry specific ab-initio and refresher training. Pawan Hans is expanding its fleet by acquiring new helicopters and actively pursuing the diversification in the MRO business in coming years. In order to support its fleet expansion and MRO activities, Pawan Hans need to augment its skilled manpower. In addition there will be overall demand for trained and skilled manpower in the aviation industry in India.
To meet the growing demand for skilled manpower, Pawan Hans is setting up state of the art basic aircraft maintenance training institute at Mumbai as part of the existing training school. Pawan Hans runs a DGCA approved training school to keep the skills of its personnel updated. Till now only helicopter type rating courses and refresher courses on the helicopter type were being conducted.
Currently there are 68 DGCA approved institutes in India imparting the basic aircraft maintenance engineering training and numbers of these institutes approach Pawan Hans for on Job training of their students as they do not have requisite facilities for the same. Pawan Hans has added advantage of providing on Job Training within its own maintenance set up. Maintenance infrastructure and workshop facilities are available at Mumbai and can provide comprehensive Training.
The institute has been named as Pawan Hans Helicopters Training Institute (PHTI). The PHTI will provide the DGCA approved Basic Aircraft Maintenance Engineering Licence preparatory course for purpose of acquiring AME Licence as per aircraft rule 61 and CAR guidelines in this regard. PHTI has already obtained no objection certificate from DGCA to start the institute. DGCA will be shortly issuing the approval certificate for which process is underway.
The first batch of 30 students in mechanical stream will be inducted from current academic year. In mechanical stream courses will be conducted to cover airframe and engines of aircrafts. From second year onwards, PHTI is planning to increase student strength to 60 with the inclusion of 30 students in Avionic stream. In Avionic stream the course will be conducted to cover the electrical, radio and instrument systems of aircrafts. The course duration will be 3 years including 6 months on job training within Pawan Hans’s world class state-of-art facilities.
PHHL is an approved Maintenance Centre to carry out servicing of Dauphin series helicopters and is part of Eurocopter Network of Authorized Maintenance Centre (AMC) worldwide to carry out the servicing in India and other South East Asian Countries.
21/07/09 Press Information Bureau