Orient Flight School (OFS)

This profile was part of the Hindustan Group of Institutions series on the old Flying Engineer site. It was written in early 2014, and its facts reflect that time.

Where OFS fits

Orient Flight School (OFS) started in 1994. It was the only notable privately run flight school across Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Karnataka. The flying schools in Karnataka and Kerala are run by state governments with aircraft from the Aero Club of India. Of Tamil Nadu's four training institutes, Madras Flying Club was seen as a club and had issues with the Airports Authority of India at Chennai, and two private schools at Salem airport had no more than three Cessna 152s each.

The fleet

OFS was based at Pondicherry Airport (ICAO VOPC, IATA PNY). Its listed fleet had nine aircraft: three Cessna 152s, five Cessna 172Rs and one Piper Seneca III. One 172R and the Seneca had not flown for years because of parts issues. One 152 was down after damage from Cyclone Thane. That left two 152s and four 172Rs active.

• VT-LIZ: conventional round dial instruments, with a direction indicator, OBIs, ADF and a KLN 89B GPS for extra navigation.
• VT-OFA: an HSI and ADF, plus the KLN 89B GPS.
• VT-OFX and VT-OFZ: Garmin G1000 glass cockpits.

As in most Indian flight schools, none had DME, so GPS gave distance to a waypoint. All had ILS receivers. The 152s had a basic cockpit with OBI and ADF, which suits visual flying and the first stage of training.

The author explained the three parts of flying training: aviate (flying the aircraft), navigate (getting from point to point safely) and communicate (talking with air traffic control). Having two aircraft types and four cockpit styles lets students see different handling and ways to navigate, which helps students who want to fly airliners on instruments.

The airfield

Pondicherry has a 4,000 foot runway at 70 and 250 degrees, an NDB at 385 kHz, and no VOR or ILS. It has no night facilities and no fuel. Air traffic watch hours were 09:00 to 14:00 Monday to Friday. OFS could fly after that until sunset, but only locally. SpiceJet once flew a Q400 there and stopped because of poor demand. The school nearly had the field to itself. The weather allows about 300 flying days a year. When the school flies outside watch hours, it uses its own jeep as a fire tender with a first aid kit.

Training

Since 1994 the school had trained 350 students for the CPL, PPL and a few multi engine ratings. Two batches start each year, in January and July, with up to 20 students each. The 24th batch began in January 2014 and the 25th was due in July 2014. The CPL is advertised as a 24 month course, though one exceptional student finished in 11 months and a few in 15. The PPL is advertised as 8 months.

In the CPL, the first 6 months are ground school (4 months) and the radio licence and student pilot licence (2 months). The next 10 months are for flying, depending on weather, aircraft and the student. At 150 hours flying stops until the DGCA papers in navigation, meteorology, regulations, technical general, technical specific and radio telephony are passed. The last 50 hours then follow. Of the 200 hours, 50 are on the 152 and 150 on the 172R. Students also fly 20 hours on an Alsim AL-50 simulator: 5 hours at the start, 10 when instrument flying begins and 5 at the end. The simulator is at Hindustan University in Chennai, 150 km away.

Flying starts at about 15 hours a month, which the school finds enough with two flights a day. First solo comes at 12 to 20 hours. The chief flying instructor said the school values safety over early solos. It logs hours by the clock, as IGRUA does, and keeps a strict solo policy, with about 110 hours of solo in the course. Cross country flights go to Trichy, Madurai, Chennai and Bangalore, with Chennai and Bangalore rarely used because of traffic. Late in the course students can log 60 to 80 hours a month. Instrument work uses the Kanchipuram VOR and the VOR and ILS at Trichy and Madurai. Night flying is at Madurai. Students also get a 1.5 hour introduction to the G1000.

The CPL is on a single engine, which rules out most airline interviews. The Seneca III was expected to fly again in March or April 2014, so students could add the multi engine rating at OFS.

Maintenance and safety

Maintenance is done by Orient Flights Pvt. Ltd (OFPL), a DGCA approved CAR 145 organisation based in the OFS hangar. The maintenance manager, J.S. Sidhu, had been a licensed AME since 1987. He had three more AMEs, two senior technicians and ten technicians, and a DGCA approved quality manager, A.K. Singh. OFPL has an Excel tool for tracking inspection due dates. Since the start, OFS had one accident and two incidents. The accident was on 10 May 1996, when Cessna 152 VT-EUR flew low over the Buckingham canal 15 miles from the airport and hit telephone wires. The aircraft ended inverted in the water and the pilot had minor injuries. The DGCA blamed the trainee's undisciplined low flying.

People and facilities

The ground school had a seminar hall, library, two classrooms, a route planning room and a computer lab with about 20 computers. The chief ground instructor and deputy director was Air Cmde (Retd) V. Govindraj, with about 9,000 Air Force flying hours. Two other instructors were WgCdr (Retd) T.R. Shankaran, with 3,000 Air Force hours, and Capt. Bharath, who gained his CPL and instructor rating in Canada. The chief flying instructor was Capt. BPS Budhiraja, flying since 1983, with over 7,100 hours, mostly at flight schools including IGRUA. He joined the school in 2005. Capt. Karamjeet Kaur and Capt. Sukhpreet Singh were assistant flight instructors.

BSc, admissions and cost

A CPL needs only 10+2 education. OFS, as part of the Hindustan Group, offered a BSc in Aviation with Hindustan University that ran alongside the two year CPL. Only one other school, IGRUA, offered such a link. A degree gives pilots more options during the weak job market and a path to an aviation MBA.

Since 2013 candidates take the PAST-OFS test (Pilot Aptitude and Skill Test) in three stages: a written test in English, maths and physics at 10+2 level, a situational awareness test with a psychometric exercise, and an interview. The aim is to find strengths and weaknesses, not to reject people. There is no psychomotor test.

The fee was INR 26,00,000 (about US$41,800) for a 200 hour single engine CPL with instrument rating, simulator sessions, books and two uniforms, plus 12.36 percent service tax. Accommodation, food and transport cost INR 50,000 for six months, so a two year course came to about INR 28 lakh plus tax. The BSc fee was INR 30,000 a year. Students could use the school's modest accommodation, with separate rooms for girls, or arrange their own.

Plans and conclusion

The Hindustan Group won the Airports Authority tender to set up Orient Flights Aviation Academy (OFAA) at Mysore (VOMY), which has a 5,700 foot runway and a VOR. OFS planned to begin flying there from April 2014, with the hangar and administrative building ready. Mysore is 150 km from Bangalore and out of its busy airspace, and could also support charter, skydiving and joyrides.

In 2013 OFS flew 2,170 training hours, 10 percent below its eight year average. Batches were about 40 percent full, around 8 students each, and watch hours limited flying. January to April were the best months. The south west monsoon matters little, but the north east monsoon from October to December does. Many OFS graduates flew for major Indian airlines, though OFS had no cadet scheme like NFTI. Avgas cost INR 230 a litre, including transport from Chennai. The author thought the school could make better use of the G1000 data logs for debriefing. South Indian parents often push children toward medicine or engineering, which explains the small batches, and the BSc option helped admissions.