CAE-Built Dhruv Simulator Arrives In India

(Aviationweek) : India’s Hatsoff helicopter training facility announced Feb. 2 the arrival of a simulator cockpit for the civil/conventional variant of the Dhruv helicopter.
The cockpit was designed and built at CAE Inc.’s manufacturing facility in Montreal.
The Dhruv simulator cockpit will be installed and integrated with the CAE-built full-mission simulator currently in operation at Hatsoff. The simulator features CAE’s roll-on/roll-off cockpit design, which enables cockpits representing various helicopter types to be used in the simulator.
The cockpit for the civil/conventional variant of the Dhruv is the second for the Hatsoff training center and will be ready for training in May. The first cockpit for the simulator represents the Bell 412 helicopter. Training for Bell 412 operators commenced in July 2010.
Hatsoff (Helicopter Academy to Train by Simulation of Flying) is a joint venture owned equally by Dhruv-maker Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd. (HAL) and CAE. Though the facility has yet to be inaugurated officially, it has caught the imagination of Indian civil pilots, who were depending on similar facilities in Dubai until last year.
“This is the world’s first simulator representing the indigenously developed HAL Dhruv helicopter and we are excited to begin offering simulation-based training that will undoubtedly prove to be a safe and cost-effective method for training Dhruv helicopter aircrews,” says Wing Cdr. (ret.) C.D. Upadhyay, Hatsoff CEO.
The CAE-built full-mission simulator at Hatsoff and the Bell 412 cockpit were certified during 2010 to Level D, the highest qualification for flight simulators, by India’s Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) and the European Aviation Safety Agency. Hatsoff expects the cockpit for the civil/conventional variant of the Dhruv to be certified to Level D by the DGCA this spring.
Additional cockpits for the Indian army/air force variant of the Dhruv and the Eurocopter Dauphin will be added to the Hatsoff training center over the next year. The Dhruv simulator is expected to arrive here next week and Hatsoff plans to begin installing it on Feb. 14, with training to begin during the first week of March.