A  new helicopter simulator park will come up at Bangalore at  a cost of Rs 240 crore by 2009, HAL  chairman Ashok Baweja disclosed here on Wednesday.

Speaking to Deccan Herald on the sidelines of an international seminar “Heli Power India — 2008”, Baweja also revealed that the first  prototype of the indigenously built light combat helicopter (LCH) will be ready for its maiden flight in 2-3 months.

According to the HAL CMD, the simulator training centre was  being set up  under a joint venture with the CAE (Canada), a leading provider of simulation and modelling technologies and integrated training services for civil aviation and defence sectors.

Bangalore, incidentally,  will have two such training centres — one for fixed wing aircraft at the new Bangalore international airport and the other at the HAL for rotary wing helicopters, Baweja said.

The HAL-CAE school will come up on a three-acre plot belonging to HAL and employ about 25 trainers to start with.

The CAE will design and manufacture one full-mission simulator featuring its roll-on/roll-off cockpit design, which enables cockpits representing various helicopter types to be used in the simulator.

Baweja remarked: “We  discussed the progress made so  far at a meeting in Bangalore on Tuesday.  The idea for  the centre came from service headquarters.

“We will develop the simulator park with focus on Dhruv but it can support other makes too. Future development of helicopters  can  be done in this facility.”

The joint venture HATSOFF — the Helicopter Academy to Train by Simulation of Flying — will provide both civil and military helicopter pilot and maintenance training services.

On the LCH, Baweja said  the design for the machine has been completed in about 16-17 months.  “In 2-3 months, we will be ready for the first flight of LCH.”

LCH, an attack helicopter performing its role against slow moving aircraft, will have 275 km speed, 500 km range in armed conflict.

Its main users are Indian Air Force  and Indian Army.

Addressing the conference earlier, Air Chief Marshal Fali Major stressed the need for operational build up and preparedness of helicopters and said IAF was  progressing well in survivability and safe operations although there was a long way to go.

The Air chief  noted that helicopters  play key role in anti-unmanned  aerial vehicle (UAV) operations.
 “We  need out of the box thinking and not conventional ways of thinking.”