As cadets warm up to flying, NDA asks for more aircraft

Pune: With army  and navy cadets showing keen interest in learning flying operations, the National Defence Academy (NDA) is strengthening its fleet of aircraft in a big way and has approached the integrated defence staff (IDS) headquarter, New Delhi, to provide it with at least five Super Dimona aircraft.
Flying is turning out to be a major recreation on the 8,000-acre campus at Khadakwasla, with the army and navy cadets joining the air force cadets in taking flying lessons. The demand has been so high that the NDA has earmarked regular hours to them for taking lessons at the flying club every Wednesday and Saturday.
The number of army cadets is nearly three times that of the air force cadets. This year, 210 army cadets will pass out of the NDA, while the number of air force cadets is 68 and navy cadets 37.
“This will be a major upgrade for us. Buying new aircraft will help us train students better and equip them to handle aircraft of modern make once they are on the job,” said senior instructor of the Air Force Training Team, Group Captain, T Suresh.
From January this year, for each six-month semester NDA has increased the flying time of air force cadets from five hours to seven-and-a-half hours. To achieve this, the cadets will now have to carry out at least 10 sorties during one semester period.
11/05/10 Ishfaq Naseem/Express India