New helicopter simulation facility set to go live in Bangalore

Sitting in Bangalore and landing at Mumbai airport, firing a missile at enemy posts till you blank it to ground zero, or how about a force-landing atop a helipad above a 20-storey building? It’s possible now with HATSOFF — a gen-next helicopter simulator facility in the city waiting to go live.

This $66.2-million technology masterpiece is a joint venture between Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL) and simulation technology leader, CAE, Canada. HATSOFF, which is the acronym for the Helicopter Academy to Train by Simulation of Flying, is the third such instrument in the world to utilise the ‘rolled-on-rolled-off’ (RO-RO) technology, unlike other cockpits which are rolled in and rolled out on to the mother ship.

HATSOFF houses the RO-RO type, full-motion level-D simulator, is certified to the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) standards with a common motion platform and interchangeable cockpit modules for Bell 412EP, Dauphin 365N3 and ALH civil and military variants. The Bell 412 full-mission simulator is awaiting the crucial Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) certification.

“We will train both military and civil pilots in the same facility, as it
will give more productive training hours because of the mix of full flight simulator, full mission simulator and fixed training device. In a normal FFS, generally, one is able to put in about 4,300 hours of training per year, while HATSOFF plans to generate about 9,600 training hours of per year when fully established. The display system is a liquid crystal on silicon (LCoS) instead of the normal cathode ray tubes (CRT). All civil simulators generally cater to recurrent training and type-rating training. But, we will impart ‘role’ flying and mission flying training to civil and military pilots,” Wing Commander (retd) Chandra Datt Upadhaya, CEO, HATSOFF, said.

The facility will be a boon to pilots of Dhruv military variant (utility & weaponised versions), Dhruv civil variant, Bell412 EP and the Dauphin 365 N3. “We will possibly be the first in the world to offer an advanced de-brief facility. It can display a session recorded on the simulator on to a smart board in the de-brief room, which will be of immense help during civil training, and of even greater value to the Indian armed forces while practising complex training sessions,” Captain Neti Krishna, chief of training, HATSOFF, said.

Military experts said that HATSOFF will revolutionise helicopter training in India, especially the pilots of armed helicopters using electronic warfare (EW) suites. Pilots will be able to operate in different environments, using different weapon systems. They will be able to practice the EW systems, operate the electro optical pod, fire weapons and learn to handle emergencies while carrying out such operations at low level, during night, with NVGs. The cost benefit to the services and professional efficiency of the crew will be maintained at the highest levels.

According to Captain Singh Deo, MD, Bell Helicopter, India, pilots would be able to practice handling emergencies any number of times now. “This will help pilots practice countless emergency recoveries till they perfect it. Also, our pilots need not go abroad for training,” he said.