Infrastructure - Alarming Reality

There is no doubt that as compared with global standards, civil flying training in India is rated lower. In the past decade, not a single foreign trainee has joined any flying school in India but in the same period, thousands of Indian pilots have graduated from flying schools abroad.

Standard of infrastructure and quality of trainers are the two key factors that determine professional standards achieved at flying training establishments. A prominent milestone in civil aviation training for ab initio pilots in India was the establishment of the Indira Gandhi Rashtriya Uran Academy (IGRUA) in the 1980s. IGRUA has maintained high professional standards but has unfortunately not been able to deliver the numbers required by the booming Indian civil aviation industry. In 2009, another government-sponsored flying training establishment designated as the National Flying Training Institute (NFTI), commenced operations at Gondia near Nagpur. Unfortunately, the civil aviation authorities responsible for the decision to establish NFTI felt that the combined expertise of the highly experienced civil and military aviators in the country was unfit to manage ab initio pilot training for civil aviation. In their wisdom, the decision-makers invited CAE of Canada to manage training at NFTI. The institute, financed by the Indian taxpayer, is manned by Indian professionals but ironically, CAE corners 51 per cent of the profit.

Inviting a foreign entity to run a civil flying training institute in India is explicit admission of lack of capability to train pilots for India’s airlines who are compelled to employ expatriates at enormous cost. The situation is somewhat incongruous as India has one of the finest military aviation training systems in the world reputed for its impeccable track record. Assigning responsibility for basic training of civil pilots to a foreign agency is hardly a feather in our cap.

There is no doubt that as compared with global standards, civil flying training in India is rated lower. In the past decade, not a single foreign trainee has joined any flying school in India but in the same period, thousands of Indian pilots have graduated from flying schools abroad. The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), the sole regulatory body in India, must be held responsible for failure to sustain civil flying training at world standards. One glaring inadequacy in the DGCA is that it has no instructor pilot with respectable credentials to review and evolve training policies and directives. While accountability lies with the DGCA, the responsibility must be shared by the unscrupulous entrepreneurs, who to exploit the surge in demand for pilots, have established flying schools that were ill-equipped and staffed by individuals with dubious professional credentials. Barring a few, these schools literally fleeced ignorant trainees, many of whom are now unemployable owing to poor quality of training. The exercise was aided and abetted by some officials of the DGCA, not known for probity. The frightening reality is that today there are about 4,000 unemployed Commercial Pilot Licence (CPL) holders in the country.

Contribution of the Military to Civil Aviation

As in other advanced nations, in India, the major repository of pilots and instructors is with military aviation. Some years ago, most of Air India pilots were ex-Indian Air Force (IAF). Aviation wings of the Indian Navy and the Indian Army also provided pilots for Indian carriers as also for business and general aviation. That the basic training standards of military aviation in the country are impeccable is unquestionable. Suffice it to say that the top three airlines in India have ex-IAF pilots as their Chief Operations Officer (COO). IGRUA and NFTI are also manned largely by retired IAF pilot instructors.

The standard of military flying training in India has remained high unlike as in civil aviation. In the IAF, there is an organised system of training pilots selected on the basis of merit, as Qualified Flying Instructors (QFI). During the five-month flying instructor’s course, which is most gruelling, trainee instructors are put through extensive ground and flying training with emphasis on human factors and instructional technique. While military QFIs undergo structured training, there is no such training in the case of civil flying instructors.

Civil Flying Instructor Training School

A well-trained flying instructor is indispensable for proper training. For some inexplicable reason, the DGCA has never considered establishing a Civil Flying Instructor Training School and does not appear to be inclined to do so even now. Rule 160 of Civil Aviation permits exemptions under various categories that can be granted only by the Ministry of Civil Aviation (MoCA). The DGCA is not empowered to grant exemptions. A noteworthy decision to improve standards of training in civil flying schools was taken in 2008 when a special directive was issued by the DGCA permitting non-CPL holder military QFIs to be considered for appointment as CFI at civil flying training establishments. Currently, quite a few non-CPL holder military QFIs are functioning as CFI/PI, but only at IGRUA and NFTI. However, this privilege was not being extended to private flying schools till recently. Reasons advanced by the DGCA regarding this were not convincing. However, after some effort at convincing DGCA, the situation has now improved and non-CPL holder military QFIs are being granted permission to function as CFIs in private flying schools.

It is necessary to understand the distinction between a pilot and a pilot instructor. Just as every good player cannot be a good coach, so also, every pilot may not necessarily be a good instructor. However, a flying instructor must necessarily be a good pilot and more importantly, have the ability to allow the trainee to make mistakes and learn from them without endangering the machine. The instructor must display supreme temperament and ability to remain composed in a crisis. The capability to impart instruction in the air is contingent on the ability of the flying instructor to communicate in simple but flawless English. The process, termed as “Patter”, is an integral part of demonstration of an exercise in the air. An English language proficiency test has been instituted in 2011 for civil pilots in India.

Woes of the Regulatory Body

Flying training is controlled at the DGCA by the Joint Director General (Jt. DG), who incidentally is not a flier. The Flying Institute Evaluation Section comprises a pilot at the level of a Director assisted by a pilot, an ex-CFI employed on contract. Decision-making based on inputs from evaluation team, is confined to the Jt. DG and DG, both of whom are non-aviators. Not many DGs in the past have deemed it fit to visit flying institutes that are nurseries for civil aviation. Although the present DG must be credited for introducing measures to reform the flying training system, progress is slow as he is handicapped due to non-availability of an ‘expert’ to advise him on the nitty-gritty of training. He is further handicapped as the Jt. DG is also not an aviator.

The Jt. DG is also responsible for licensing, an elaborate process involving thorough scrutiny of a variety of documents. The workload of training and licensing combined is well beyond the capability of a single individual; hence the delay. There is, therefore, a need to bifurcate the functions of training and licensing, each headed by a Jt. DG. The Jt. DG who heads training must necessarily be a pilot instructor of repute with either civil or military antecedents. Until government approval for permanent Jt. DG (Training) is obtained, an instructor pilot from military/civil aviation with the appropriate credentials should be engaged on contract. The suggestions have been made without intent to cast aspersions on the capability of the present incumbent or his predecessors. It may be of interest to know that the Co-Chairman of FAA Committee on Pilot Training at the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) of the US, Rory Kay, is an airline instructor pilot. Instead of re-inventing the wheel, we should adopt an efficient model functional elsewhere.

The responsibility of monitoring/inspecting/reporting of flying schools lies with the Director, Flying Training. A single individual handling over 40 flying schools in the country defies logic. He is assisted by an individual of unquestionable professional integrity—an erstwhile CFI employed on contract, who decided to assess the CFI/PII/PI/API in the field purely on their respective professional merit and downgraded over half a dozen CFIs. The DGCA needs to have at least six competent instructor pilots from civil/military aviation, on contract if necessary, at Delhi and at least one at each of the regional headquarters. If such measures are not instituted, the ongoing effort to streamline instructional flying training might prove to be futile.

The state of affairs is even more appalling at the regional headquarters of the DGCA where not a single aviator has been appointed to monitor flying training in the region. There can be no better example of professional profligacy demonstrated by the apex regulatory body.