Sources says the Patiala Flying Club will get the planes, each costing Rs 1.5 crore, within a week. Each four-seater plane is a Cessna 172, the single-engine aircraft with latest technology of a jet.
At present, only Hyderabad club has trainer planes, 11 of which were purchased from the USA and are parked in Mumbai.
“The state civil aviation officials had recently visited Mumbai to finalise the paper work to get the planes,” an official says. A two-member pilot team will come from the US to train about 20 senior pilots from various flying clubs from April 25 to 30. A team of the DGCA will also come from Delhi to supervise the training.
At present, the Punjab government has seven trainer planes, three Cessna 152 and four 1960 model Pushpaks, which have become obsolete. Last time Punjab got three trainer aircrafts was in 1986— one for Ludhiana and two for Patiala. Since then, pilots are being trained on these planes, which are now old. While three planes in Patiala are air worthy, two each in Ludhiana and Amritsar are gathering dust due to lack of instructors and engineers. Both these flying clubs were closed four years ago.
Sources say every year, about 20 to 25 pilots were trained here, and now with new planes, the number will rise to 40.
Now, the state government has also pitched in and sanctioned Rs 2 crore for night landing and navigation facility at the Patiala flying club and as much amount for buying another plane, say sources.
They say the state government also needs a multi-engine aircraft. As per the new guidelines of DGCA, to be a pilot, one must be given 25-hour training on a multi-engine plane. The state has one such plane, the 1984 model King Air C-90, which was recently repaired by Delhi Flying Club but is lying unutilised, as the government has failed to get pilots. Besides, if a plane is more than 20 years’ old, it cannot be used for VVIP flights. So, it can only be used for training pilots, says an official.
Capt GS Mangat, Chief Flight Instructor at Patiala, says, “Our training facilities will improve with these two new aircrafts.”