The Hindu : `Wings' awarded to pilots

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Dec 21, 2003

Southern States

Southern States - Tamil Nadu

`Wings' awarded to pilots

By Our Staff Reporter

The Director-General, Coast Guard, Sureesh Chandra Mehta, giving away the Governor of Kerala Rolling Trophy for the best all-round trainee pilot to A.K. Bera at a passing-out parade of the Helicopter Training School at INS Rajali, Arakkonam, on Saturday.

ARAKKONAM DEC. 20. Five naval trainee pilots and one Coast Guard pilot were awarded the `Wings' by the Director-General of Coast Guard, Sureesh Chandra Mehta, at a passing-out parade held at the Helicopter Training School (HTS) at the INS Rajali Naval Air Station here on Saturday. The parade marked the conclusion of 24 weeks of flying training and study of aviation subjects.

Vice-Admiral Sureesh Chandra Mehta congratulated the HTS on the quality of training offered at the school. The Governor of Kerala Rolling Trophy for the best all-round trainee pilot was awarded to Sub-Lieutenant A.K. Bera, while the Flag Officer Commanding-in-Chief Eastern Naval Command Rolling Trophy for the trainee pilot standing first in order of merit in flying was awarded to Sub-Lt. Deepak Dewan. The Sub-Lt. Kunte Memorial Book Prize for obtaining the first place in ground subjects was awarded to Sub-Lt. Bera. The other four graduating officers who were awarded the `flying wings' are: K. Ameet, Nihal Sabnis, V.M. Akash and B.K. Prashant.

At an informal ceremony held later, Balvinder S. Parhar, president of Air Cats, Goa, addressed the pilots in the presence of their parents. He advised them to keep themselves abreast of the latest in flying. P. Raj Kumar, Commander, said the HTS, commissioned in September 1971 at INS Garuda in Kochi, Kerala, was shifted to INS Rajali, Arakkonam in June 1992. Passing out here, these pilots would join the shore-based operational flights of the Navy and would be fully competent to fly helicopters on various missions by day and night.

From a very modest beginning, flying the Hughes 300 helicopters to the present day indigenously manufactured Chetak helicopters, the HTS has successfully trained more than 256 pilots of the Navy, Coast Guard and foreign navies. The school conducts two courses a year. The pilots who passed out of the current batch of the 61st Helicopter Conversion Course would proceed to the Naval Institute of Aviation Technology, Kochi, for Short Aircraft Maintenance Course on Chetak/MATCH helicopters for two weeks. After the preliminary briefing of checks, procedures, emergency procedures and blind-fold checks, the course commenced flying on August 4. Each pupil pilot flew a total of 87 hours during the course, comprising basic handling by day and night, advance handling, formation flying, pilot navigation and instrument flying. The search and rescue phase of the course was conducted at INS Dega, Visakhapatnam. Altogether, 541 sorties of 536 flying hours have been flown towards the completion of the course. The overall performance in flying has been high average.

The course included regular ground training lectures and tests on helodynamics, aero-engines, aircraft instruments, airmanship, navigation and aircraft knowledge, in addition to impromptu Gentests consisting of over 200 lectures.

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