Hindustan Institute of Technology and Science (HITS): Hindustan University

This profile was part of a series on the Hindustan Group of Institutions, which the original called an aviation university. It looked at how the engineering department of Hindustan Institute of Technology and Science (HITS) teaches aeronautics and aerospace.

Why practical learning matters

The article opened with a problem in Indian engineering education: a gap between industry and the classroom. The 2013 National Employability Report by Aspiring Minds found that of about 500,000 engineers graduating each year, only 17 percent were fit for IT services jobs. Fewer still were employable in core engineering, which helps explain the weak state of Indian manufacturing and aerospace. The author also pointed to a second problem, the focus on knowledge over understanding, and quoted a line from Malcolm Gladwell on the difference.

Background

Aviation at the Hindustan Group began in 1968 with a course in Aircraft Maintenance Engineering (AME), which is hands on. HITS started a four year BTech in Aeronautical Engineering in 1997. After it received university status from the UGC, it added Aerospace Engineering in 2008. It now offers bachelors, masters and research programmes.

The author gave six reasons the department stands out, even against the IITs:

• It is a private institution started by the late Dr. K.C.G. Verghese, who treated aviation as a passion more than a business.
• The aeronautical department opened 29 years after the AME course, on a separate campus, which pushed it toward practical teaching.
• Some programmes are run jointly with the Department of Science and Technology, industry and the university.
• It was among the first aeronautical departments set up by a private institution in India.
• The management gives scholarships and sponsors some students for overseas visits.
• The group also runs a flight school at Pondicherry and an AME college near Chennai, so students see all three sides of aviation.

Aircraft and labs

Because the group once ran a short lived private airline, Air Asiatic, the department has more aircraft, engines and airframes than any other engineering college. They include a Boeing 737-200, two Beechcraft Twin Bonanza Queen Air, a Beech Jet 400, a MiG 23, a Cessna 152 and a Harvard trainer. That spans subsonic, transonic and supersonic flight, and general, business, air transport and military aviation.

Two hangars hold a non functional Boeing 737-200 full flight simulator from Air India and a non functional multi engine simulator from Indian Airlines. They also hold landing gear, including one from an Air India Boeing 747, hydraulic actuators, propellers, batteries, generators, a low speed wind tunnel, two hovercraft, two Pratt and Whitney JT15D-5 engines, two Avon Mk 109 engines, a Pratt and Whitney JT8B turbofan, a turboshaft, airliner skin and structure sections including 747 engine pylons and doors, and many cutaway military jet and piston engines.

An aero workshop covers structure, flight controls and propulsion, and holds a Pushpak aircraft with its skin removed. The avionics lab has pitot static testers, IFR 4000 and 6000 series testers and a fibroscope. It also has ultrasonic, magnaflux and eddy current equipment for non destructive testing, and computers with ARINC cards for working with the ARINC 429 data protocol.

Simulator and in-flight lab

A DGCA approved Alsim AL-50 simulator, linked to Orient Flight School in Pondicherry, is housed in the School of Aeronautical Sciences. Each student in the four year course gets 2 hours on it. After that they fly as passengers in the back seat of a Cessna 172. The first hour shows the control surfaces, instruments and systems. In the second, students log airspeed, altitude and pressures from a checklist, and watch the angle of attack at which a stall happens. Two students fly each sortie. The exercise comes in the second year, just as basics are introduced. At IITs, the author noted, it comes later and 5 to 6 students share a larger aircraft. Only a few IITs offer it, and IIT Madras stopped years earlier.

Enrolment and courses

The annual capacity at bachelors level is 300. In 2013 to 14, 240 students enrolled (175 aeronautical and 65 aerospace), and about 250 were expected the next year. The same year, 60 enrolled for the MTech in Aeronautics, 15 for the MTech in AME and 20 for the MTech in Avionics. Senior industry engineers also took PhDs. The department added a BTech in Avionics, and new masters specialisations in composites and structures, non destructive testing and unmanned aerial vehicles.

The head of department, Dr. Dilip A. Shah, a fluid dynamics specialist who spent 25 years at the National University of Singapore, said students can walk in and study the aircraft at any time. He said the department had focused on producing good engineers and was now turning to research and new labs. Of 37 faculty members, 7 had PhDs, 5 were working toward one and 25 held masters degrees.

Exposure and contests

Management sponsored eight top students to the Singapore Airshow 2014, where they saw the Airbus A350 and Boeing 787. The university attends this show regularly for branding, to look for jobs for graduates (Singapore Airlines had hired AME students directly) and to learn what industry needs, said Dr. R. Asokan.

HITS hosts the only TIFAC-CORE arm for aeronautics in India. TIFAC, the Technology Information, Forecasting and Assessment Council, was set up in 1988 under the Department of Science and Technology. Under the programme, 800 HAL engineers had been trained across 21 batches. In the Spirit AeroSystems design contest, the HITS group came first runner up in the 2013 to 14 edition. In 2012 students did not win a prize, but their work on "Rubber Metal" earned one of them a masters place with a fee waiver at Wichita State University.

What students knew

The author spoke to two fourth semester students picked at random, Satya Teja and Sreesa Manogya. After their in-flight lab, they explained stalls, flight controls, engine controls and instruments well, better than students seen at other colleges. Dual degree aerospace students the author met at IIT Madras in 2012 knew less, which he put down to no aircraft on campus and no in-flight lab.

Careers

Aerospace careers in India are limited. The state sector, led by HAL and NAL, has a weak record on development programmes such as the Saras, LCA and Hansa, and graduates often went overseas. Mahindra Aerospace, which bought Gippsland Aero of Australia, offered some hope. Honeywell Technology Solutions Lab (campuses in Hyderabad, Bangalore and Madurai), Moog, Boeing, Bombardier, Rockwell Collins and Airbus also work on systems in India, although most of their hires came from electronics, electrical, mechanical and computer science rather than aerospace. HITS was said to be in talks with a major aircraft company about working with the department.

Conclusion

The author called HITS the only Indian engineering college with a truly practical approach at bachelors, masters and doctoral levels, and probably the Embry-Riddle of India. To match its Florida counterpart it would need to build real research. He placed it as the best private aeronautics and aerospace college in India and in the top 10 against the IITs.