HAL, CAE ink JV for helicopter simulator training centre

BANGALORE: Bangalore-headquartered Hindustan Aeronautics and Canada based CAE on Wednesday signed an agreement to establish a Canadian $55 million joint venture (JV) company that would open a helicopter simulator training centre here.

The JV firm, Helicopter Academy to Train Simulation of Flying (HATSOFF), would be owned equally by HAL and CAE, HAL said in a statement. The training centre is expected to begin operations in late 2008, by providing both civil and military helicopter pilot and maintenance training services.

As part of the JV, CAE would design and manufacture one full-mission simulator featuring CAE's roll-on/roll-off design, which enables cockpits representing various helicopter types to be used in the simulator, it said.

The two companies are planning to provide HATSOFF with cockpits for the three variants of the HAL-built Advance Light Helicopter (ALH) Dhruv, as well as cockpits for the Bell 412 and Eurocopter Dauphin helicopters.

"Other military and civil helicopter platforms will be added as the market develops," the statement added.

HATSOFF plans to offer both flight and maintenance training, and provide customers initial, conversion, recurrent and mission training. It would feature multimedia classrooms, computer-based training, and a training management information system.