IAF trainees now fly only 25 hours
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With the fleet of HPT-32 basic trainer aircraft grounded since mid-2009, rookie pilots of the Indian Air Force get only 25 hours of training in air, down from 150 hours, at the Air Force Academy, Dundigal, near Hyderabad. The Public Accounts Committee report on “The training of pilots in the Indian Air Force”, tabled in the Lok Sabha, has voiced a concern over the use of “outdated and ageing” aircraft to train IAF pilots.
Till mid-2009, the first stage of training at Dundigal comprised a basic training of about 70 hours on HPT-32 trainers, while trainees flew Kiran Mk-I for advanced training for another 80 hours. Post-training, rookie pilots selected for fighter flying and helicopters go to Hakimpet, those picked for transport aircraft are sent to Yelahanka, and draftees for the navigation branch move to Begumpet for Stage-II training.
With the 114 HPT-32s grounded, training at Dundigal comprises 25 hours over six months on Kiran Mk-I. According to the PAC report, rookie pilots are “ill-equipped with lesser number of flying training hours on the Kiran Mk-I”. Union minister of state for defence M.M. Pallam Raju stated that the Cabinet Committee on Security would clear the IAF’s proposal to acquire 75 Swiss-made Pilatus PC-7 aircraft for basic training. An IAF spokesperson in Bengaluru has explained that even though there is a reduction in total flying experience before trainee pilots move to an operational squadron, the effect is offset to some extent by their training entirely on jet aircraft and the enhanced quantum of flying at the Air Force Academy and Air Force Station, Hakimpet.
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