Aviation India: Careers

Four training facilities for aspiring pilots opened in 2007 at the airport at 4800 E. Falcon Drive, bringing the total flight learning centers to seven.
“We started as a flight school during World War II, and we’re continuing to grow in that direction,” said airport director Corinne Nystrom, who added that Falcon is among the top 10 busiest general aviation airports in the United States.
Unlike commercial airports that offer passenger service such as Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport or Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport , Falcon Field serves smaller, privately owned one- and two-engine airplanes.
Pilot training is one of Falcon’s fastest-growing enterprises.
The largest pilot-training school, Sabena Airline Training Center, moved its headquarters from Scottsdale Airpark to Falcon Field in February primarily for more space for its growing number of student pilots.
The other training centers are the two oldest — Arizona Aviation and Learn to Fly AZ, which started more than 20 years ago. Newer schools include Premier Helicopters, Regional Airline Academy, Sun Country Flight Services and X-Air. Sabena trains more than 400 students each year, all foreign students who are potential pilots for airlines in India and the Netherlands.
The student pilots pay between $30,000 and $40,000 for up to nine months of training, plus about $4,000 to rent nearby apartments. They attend classes in the center’s 30,000-square-foot school at 5010 E. Falcon Drive, sit in simulated airplanes, fly single- and twinengine planes with a trainer, and solo over the East Valley.
Van den Bergh said the center provides trained pilots for five Indian and European airlines, including KLM Royal Dutch Airlines and SpiceJet Airlines of India. Students are renting more than 60 apartments in Mesa and nearby areas, he said.
Sabena Airline Training Center owns 40 airplanes and is planning to purchase 10 more. It has 100 employees, including 50 flight instructors, 25 mechanics and 25 on the administrative staff, and is planning to hire more people.
Nikhil Samuel Chavhan, 24, of Delhi, India, is completing an eight-month pilot training course that began in Australia and ended up in Mesa. He plans to join SpiceJet.
“Flying has always been my dream, mainly because my father is an ex-Air Force pilot,” said Chavhan, who holds a master’s degree in computer science.
Students at Arizona Aviation pay $4,500 on average for three to four months of training so they can qualify for FAA permits. Sun Country Flight Services and Premier Helicopters have leased office and classroom space from Tango One Aviation, a company that provides fuel and services for airplane owners.
29/12/07 Tony Natale/East Valley Tribune, AZ, USA

Fifty-five seconds to disaster, the voice of a busy Miami air traffic controller crackled over the radio in Harry Duckworth III's twin-engine Piper. "Traffic 11 o'clock, 2 miles southbound, altitude indicates two thousand two hundred."
The veteran pilot scanned the horizon for the oncoming plane. It was about 3 p.m. on Dec. 8, and scattered clouds hung in the sky about 2,300 feet over the Everglades west of Boca Raton. This was the final leg of Duckworth's trip from Ocala to Pompano Beach, where a childhood friend was waiting, and the controller's warning had come at an especially busy time for the pilot, who was making ready to land.
"Six Charlie Charlie," Duckworth said into the radio, identifying himself to the control tower. "Searchin' for traffic." It was to be his last transmission, according to a preliminary report released Friday by the National Transportation Safety Board.
As the final seconds of Duckworth's life ticked away, the Miami controller radioed two other planes before the images on his radar screen made him call Duckworth once more.
"Six Charlie Charlie, that traffic's passing left to right, two thousand two hundred Ö" "Immediately thereafter," the investigator's report continues, "there was an unintelligible transmission on the frequency that was cut off." Duckworth might never have seen the single-engine Cessna, piloted by a flight student who wasn't communicating with the control tower.
The planes collided at about 2,000 feet, raining wreckage over several acres of marsh. Duckworth and the other pilot, 25-year-old Cleon Alvares, who had come here from Mumbai, India, to learn to fly, were killed.
Alvares was a student at Kemper Aviation, a Lantana-based flight school that recruits heavily in India. He had more than 100 hours of flight time, said Jeff Rozelle, the flight school's owner, in a statement after the crash.
Duckworth, 56, had been a pilot for more than 30 years, his family said. His grandfather flew combat flights in World War I. His father flew commercially for decades.
Recovery teams spent the next few days pulling jagged pieces of the planes from the muck before NTSB air safety investigator Paul Cox pored over the wreckage. Cox's report noted that while Duckworth was flying by instrument flight rules, which required him to check with the tower before changing altitude or heading, Alvares was flying by visual flight rules and wasn't required to communicate with controllers at all.
It's possible each pilot, moving through a congested zone frequented by student pilots, never saw the other coming.
Alvares was the third Kemper Aviation pilot to die in a plane crash since October, when a single-engine Piper flown by another Indian trainee and a veteran flight instructor crashed into a golf course west of Boynton Beach. Both pilots were killed and a third student, also from India, was critically injured in that crash.
28/12/07 Michael LaForgia/Palm Beach Post, United States

Those who could not apply to National Aviation Company of India Limited (NACIL) to get appointed as Senior Trainee Pilot or to get included in a panel for future requirements in the domestic wing of Air India (erstwhile Indian Airlines Limited) as per this notification in November 2007, can apply now.
NACIL have extended the last date of receipt of applications from 3rd December 2007 to 31 January 2008. (Though the November notification was to recruit both Trainee and Sr. Trainee Pilots, the last date is now extended for Sr. Trainee Pilots applicants only). Date of reckoning eligibility too is extended - from 24.12.2007 to 15.02.2008.
Academic & technical qualifications, age limit etc are all same as in the earlier notification.
The application form is slightly different with all 'Trainee Pilot' references omitted.
Download it from here or here .
See the new notification in full with all details (in Word document format) here.

DGCA has published the schedule for January 2008 session of Pilots Technical/General Examination. The examinations are on 8, 9 and 10 of the month.
Candidates appearing at all centres of the written examination shall have to carry a Photo Identity Card issued by DGCA for entry into the examination hall. This Photo Identity Card shall be issued to only those candidates, who are admitted for the written examination. DGCA Regional / Sub-Regional Offices shall issue the Photo Identity Card to the candidates appearing at the examination centres under their jurisdiction.
Candidates are advised to download the form for issue of photo identity card from this page of DGCA website. Fill in the required information and paste passport size photograph at the given space.
The DGCA notification says the candidates should bring their Photo Identity proof AND
downloaded page of the website list of admitted candidates on which their name appears along-with the completed form to their respective DGCA Regional / Sub-Regional Offices for issue of DGCA Photo Identity Card.
Though the exam schedule is published, it seems DGCA is yet to upload the list of admitted candidates. The link to the list may appear here within a few days.
In case the candidate is not able to have his/her Photo Identity Card made at the Regional / Sub-Regional Offices, the completed form should be brought to the examination venue, where it will be issued by the DGCA officer.
Please see the full notification of DGCA for all details.

(The list of admitted candidates is published on 31-12-2007. And revised on 07-01-2008.
Here is the links to the revised admitted candidates list:

• Delhi
• Mumbai
• Others

The State-owned airline Indian (Domestic wing of Air India) has approved 12 of the 60 Voluntary Retirement Scheme proposals from cabin crew members that have been received till date. Official sources told Business Line that 48 other proposals were under different stages of processing and the numbers of proposals approved were likely to increase in the coming days.
The airline has also received three proposals for rehabilitation of cabin crew members, which would allow them to start ground staff duty after some training.
The scheme, which was on offer for those cabin crew members who were over 41 years old and had completed 20 years of service, closed at the end of last month.
In addition, those cabin crew members below the age of 50 were also given the option of taking up ground duties at the discretion of the management.
24/12/07 Business Line/Moneycontrol.com

Chandigarh: The booming Indian aviation industry is becoming a major draw for several middle-class youngsters in the country, many of whom are from small towns.
The flight attendant training schools are offering a big hope for all.
With the airlines expanding in the country, a number of institutes have mushroomed to help aspirants build a career in the airline industry.
The training institutes are a big help in grooming one's personality. Be it applying a face mask, to the make up, to hair-do - it teaches one everything.
Improving communication skills and learning to converse in English are two major areas that these institutes lay their maximum stress on besides teaching other important aspects of the job in airlines. The training brings a complete makeover in one's self as per the needs of the industry.
According to an air-hostess aspirant, a charming and pleasing personality is a must for the job, besides a patient behaviour.
From the art of introducing oneself to spoken English and body language, required to become a professional, all are taught to perfection at the air-hostess training institutes.
During a flight, an airhostess is the mistress of all that she surveys in an aircraft. Inside the aircraft, she is the one who is seen everywhere, elegantly helping the passengers and greeting them with a smile.
According to Samir Walia, Vice President P.R, Frankfinn institute of Air-hostess training, there was a different perception and a bit of a taboo in terms of joining the industry a few years ago. Now with open sky policies and more and more people travelling, the view point is changing.
23/12/07 Economic Times

Panaji: Twelve Frankfinn Goa students got selected as Jetairways’ cabin crew at interviews held in Goa, recently.
Mr Gerson Rebelo, Centre Head, while addressing the presspersons, highlighted the emphasis on placement assistance at Frankfinn.
He said that the students are individually attended to during the training and the placement division and training division work in close co-ordination.
Ms Rupa Gaur, Centre Head and Ms Vidhaya D’Silva, manager, training and placement, as well as the faculty interacted with the press and answered some specific queries regarding the course, methodology as well as selection criteria.
They spoke of the international recognition of the course and certification by EDEXCEL – UK which facilitated students to pursue higher education abroad too.
23/12/07 Navhind Times

Hyderabad : Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy on Saturday assured allocation of 3,170.69 acres of land for an aviation university and commercial airport to be established by Bramhani Industries Ltd. at Ambavaram in Jammalamadugu constituencyThe aviation university comprises a pilot, an airhostess and offer security training courses, aircraft maintenance and repairs, besides having a commercial airport with a runway of 10,000 feet and hangars, BIL Chairman and Managing Director Gali Janardhana Reddy explained to the Chief Minister, when he visited Ambavaram and interacted with BIL officials on the progress of the mega steel plant.
23/12/07 Andhra Cafe

Mumbai/New Delhi: New flight duty time limitations (FDTL) issued by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) are worsening an already acute pilot shortage and adding Rs 300 crore to the industry's burden by way of fresh recruitment.
Under the guidelines, pilots have less time to fly and airlines say they will have to recruit 20 to 25 per cent more pilots, at a time when there is a shortage of pilots across the globe.
The DGCA has included non-flying hours within an overall annual duty cap of 1,600 hours per pilot, within which the number of flying hours has been capped at 1,000 hours a year.
The earlier cap, at 1,000 hours, was restricted to the number of flying hours. Now, the time that pilots lose owing to delays, airport congestion or diversions, will all be counted within the duty cap.
The DGCA has also increased the mandatory rest period for a pilot per day from eight to ten hours.
Airline companies have protested against the guidelines. The DGCA issued these in August but airlines have just begun to feel the impact.
Air Deccan, which has around 450 pilots, has estimated that the guidelines will require it to recruit 15 to 20 per cent more. Air India and SpiceJet also estimate a 20 per cent additional requirement.
For pilots flying aircraft that land at midnight, the guidelines also stipulate extra two hours' rest - over and above the stipulated rest period - for every hour of delay past midnight.
22/12/07 Manisha Singhal & Anirban Chowdhury/Business Standard

Mumbai: On Thursday, December 20th 2007, Central Bank of India, one of the largest public sector banks in India celebrated its 97th Founder's Day. The occasion was chosen by the bank to launch two new products and a few other services.
Cent Swabhiman, a reverse mortgage scheme especially designed for senior citizens of the country and Cent Udaan, a loan for pursuing training as a pilot for eligible aspirants was announced at this special occasion.
Cent Udaan is geared towards providing a loan up to a maximum of Rs. 25 lakhs to aspiring pilots. This loan will have to be repaid within five years of completion of the pilot training program.
In addition to the above schemes Central Bank of India also entered a tie-up with Reliance Mutual Fund for distributing its products. The bank also extended the core banking solution platform to its Shirdi branch and is contemplating to install an ATM there. An online application facility for education loans was also launched at the occasion.
Nationalized on 19th July, 1969 by the Government of India, the bank currently has a nationwide presence with more than three thousand branches and around three hundred extension counters across 27 States.
21/12/07 Joseph Samson/Rupee Times

SriLankan Airlines is now one of the few companies in Asia to receive the globally recognized EASA 147 certification from the European Aviation Safety Agency, to provide training in aircraft maintenance to foreign and local students.
The European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) is the European Union’s authority on aviation standards and safety.
Only one other company in Asia, outside the Middle East and China, has obtained EASA 147 certification, among only 23 non-European organisations to have it.
SriLankan Technical Training provides training for aircraft engineers, technicians, and pilots.
These already include foreign students from Pakistan, the Maldives, Oman and India, and staff of other airlines.
SriLankan Technical Training’s two-year Training Course in aircraft maintenance is in high demand among locals and foreigners, both men and women who intend embarking upon a career in aviation.
Both the avionics and airframe subjects are taught according to the EASA syllabus by its 11 highly trained academic staff.
It is also authorised by Airbus Industrie to conduct training for external students and organisations in A320 maintenance. SriLankan Technical training also provides training and certification of aircraft Engineers of airlines that are contracted by SriLankan to certify SriLankan’s aircraft in other countries.
21/12/07 Ceylon Daily News, Sri Lanka

Zaragoza, Philippines: An Indian flight student and a Filipino pilot were injured after the small private plane they were using made an emergency landing in Nueva Ecija on Thursday morning, local authorities said.
Policemen said the two were on board the single-engine plane owned by Omni Aviation Corp. The aircraft came back to earth in Valeriana village, Zaragoza in the western area of Nueva Ecija.
Senior Insp. Restituto Reyes, chief of the Zaragoza Police, identified the victims as Indian national Sandeep Kimar (Kumar?), 30, and Filipino Jeffrey Mabarang, 26.
Reyes told GMANews.TV that the Cagayan province-bound plane took off at the Diosdado Macapagal International Airport (formerly Clark Airport) in Angeles City in Pampanga and flew northward.
While flying over Nueva Ecija at about 10 a.m., the plane's engine "malfunctioned." This prompted Mabarang to take emergency maneuvers.
"They were headed for Tuguegarao City when the engine conked out. They were forced to land at a rice field," the police chief said in Filipino.
The victims were rushed to the Central Luzon Hospital in Tarlac province to undergo treatment.
"They both had wounds to their faces and bodies but Jeffrey also suffered minor burns," said Reyes.
However, he assured that the two men were already out of harm's way.
20/12/07 Mark Meruenas, GMA news.tv, Philippines

Hyderabad: Top honchos of aircraft manufacturers Boeing and Airbus, and airline carrier Indian Airlines, on Wednesday expressed the need to shore up human resources training and infrastructure to sustain the current rate of over 30 per cent growth in India’s aviation sector.
The Indian aeronautical education programmes have mainly concentrated on aircraft design and aero dynamics all these years.
However, with the growing demand for new breed of trained professionals, they feel the necessity to concentrate on airline management, airport management, and avionics along with technical training programmes like MRO (maintenance, repair and overhaul).
Senior professionals from the aviation sector in the country and experts from the US had converged on Wednesday at a one-day interactive meeting on ‘Industry Perspective of Aviation Education in India’ hosted at the SNIST Vaughn College of Aeronautics and Technology here.
Efforts are on to develop projects under the public private partnership model in India, which is paving way for new airports at Hyderabad and Bangalore, restructure of existing ones at Delhi and Mumbai and possibly creation of two more new airports in New Delhi and Mumbai.
The Managing Director of Airbus, South Asia, Aajay K. Mehra, said that the passenger traffic is projected to grow from 35 million to 60 million by 2010 and 150 million by 2020. Of the 1,000 aircraft ordered at the Paris Airshow, 400 were booked by Indian airliners.
A fleet addition of such a large magnitude over a four year period would require skilled people with new capabilities who also understand new aviation industry regulations.
Capt S.N. Reddy, Advisor to Government of Andhra Pradesh on aviation industry, said that India has become an importer of pilots from a situation where it once used to send its pilots abroad for jobs.
To meet the projected addition of about 400 aircraft, India would require about 4,000 pilots, 3,000 engineers, a minimum of 8,000 cabin crew and about one lakh support staff. All of them would need specialised training.
20/12/07 Business Line/Sify

As pilot training courses are expensive and time-driven, it is important for parents and students to understand the finer nuances of getting into a training school. Beginning with an insight into the course, to procurement of a bank loan, to facilitating visa processes, etc, are all things that need to be taken care of. The next big step is appearing for a screening test. Besides being important, it ensures that the student gets into the aviation school that he deserves to be in and also to value the money and time he will invest in a course.
"A clear understanding of the entire process is crucial in order to serve the aspirant in the right manner and that's what we major in," said Lalitha Krishnamurthy, director business, Suparsa Aviation Services.
A stringent screening process is conducted by the institute to ensure the aptitude and attitude of the students for the training programs ahead, so that they face no disappointments later.
"The exam also helps the student realise what exactly he wants to choose; giving him an apt introduction to the standards that he is expected to meet," said Krishnamurthy. The screening exam is a standardised psychometric test for reliable and valid measures, she later added.
Once they clear the test, students have a choice of five acclaimed flight training schools in different parts of the globe like the Orlando Flight Training and Phoenix East Aviation in the United States, Algonquin College in Canada, Aeroflite Aviation Corporation in the Philippines and the Australian National Aviation College in Australia.
The students are assessed based on aptitude, finance and visa compliance, and accordingly sent to these schools. Analysing these minute details ensure preciseness of decision, establishing a credibility of the services offered.
18/12/07 Express TravelWorld

After years of debate about the merits of older pilots flying commercial passenger planes, a controversial rule that kept pilots over age 60 out of the cockpits of U.S. jetliners was overturned last week.
Congress passed legislation, which was signed into law by President Bush on Friday, that raises the mandatory retirement age for pilots to 65.
But the rule change will do little to help with a worldwide pilot shortage.
"The expected pilot shortage is so significant that increasing the pilot age to 65 will only solve a small part of the problem," according to the International Air Transport Association, the Geneva-based group that represents 242 of the world's leading airlines. Those IATA carriers operate about 94 percent of scheduled international flights.
"There are 16,000 aircraft on order through 2020, and we need to train 17,000 new pilots a year to fly them," Giovanni Bisignani, director general of IATA, told reporters last week at the association's annual media briefings in Geneva.
That represents 3,000 to 3,500 more pilots per year than the current system worldwide has the capacity to train, according to IATA.
The most serious pilot shortages are in emerging markets, such as India, where the training capacity is very limited.
IATA has endorsed what's known as the multicrew pilot licensing training program, or MPL. It is a new and controversial way to train commercial pilots that puts far more emphasis on time in jetliner simulators with other crew members than on hands-on experience flying solo in a small plane.
But during last week's media briefings in Geneva, Juergen Haacker, director of operations for IATA and one of its aviation safety experts, expressed reservations about the multicrew pilot program. The jury is still out on MPL, he said.
The goal of the MPL program is to greatly reduce the time it takes to train someone with no experience flying an airplane -- any kind of plane -- to be qualified to sit in the right seat of a commercial jetliner in as little as 12 to 18 months.
The transport association has started what it calls the IATA Training and Qualification Initiative, with the goal of increasing the pool of pilot candidates and improving training standards. As part of the new initiative, IATA will have a database to track MPL cadets.
In the United States, the Federal Aviation Administration has so far not indicated that it will adopt the MPL program anytime soon.
18/12/07 James Wallace/Seattle Post Intelligencer, US

Mumbai: A new US federal law passed mid-December may make it difficult for airline companies in India to recruit retired expatriate pilots to meet growing shortages.
The new law passed by the US government and called Fair Treatment for Experienced Pilots Act allows both the pilot and co-pilot on a domestic flight to be up to the age of 65 years.
The earlier cut-off age was 60 years, which made it easier for Indian carriers to hire US pilots since commercial pilots in India can fly till the age of 65.
Airlines employ over 800 foreign pilots, out of 2,500 pilots in India. About 5 per cent of them are above 60 years and from the US. But the US is increasingly being seen as a major source for experienced commanders given an estimated requirement for over 4,500 pilots in the next five years in India.
"The new law will make sourcing of the pilots from the US difficult for us now," admitted Air India executive director Jitender Bhargava.
Air India has about 800 pilots and of these 117 are foreign. The airline did not provide the number of US pilots, but Bhargava said the number was not significant.
Sources in Jet Airways said 100 of its 700 pilots are foreign and 15 of them are retired pilots from the US.
When asked how far the change in the US law will impact, Director General of Civil Aviation Kanu Gohain merely said, “We will have to wait and watch.”
For airlines in India the timing of the new regulation may be a problem. All of them are already short of pilots to command new- generation airliners like the Boeing 777s and the wide-bodied Airbus A330s that airlines ply on their international routes.
Domestic airlines can approach other sources for pilots from Europe, Brazil and other Scandinavian countries. But communication and language can be barrier.
18/12/07 Manisha Singhal/Business Standard

President Bush signed the Fair Treatment for Experienced Pilots Act (H.R.4343) into law on Friday, thus raising the retirement age for commercial pilots from 60 to 65.
The bill passed unanimously through both houses of Congress last week. Introduced last Tuesday by Rep. James Oberstar (D-Minn.), House Transportation and Infrastructure chairman, the law stripped the pilot retirement age provisions out of the FAA reauthorization bill into a stand-alone bill
"With enactment of this law, we've changed a half-century-old age discrimination rule that has left skilled veteran pilots at a disadvantage to international competitors," said Rep. John Mica (R-Fla.), House Transportation Committee ranking member and co-sponsor of the bill.
Mica earlier this month called on Oberstar to pull the pilot retirement age provision out of the FAA reauthorization bill, currently stalled in the Senate, but Oberstar was not in favor of creating a stand-alone bill H.R. 4343 marks an about-face for the Transportation chairman.
17/12/07 Madhu Unnikrishnan/Aviation Daily/Aviation Week, US

New Delhi: Sparks are flying between Indian and expat pilots who are increasingly being hired by airlines here to meet the flier shortage.
A section of Indian pilot community is seething over the disparity between their emoluments - ranging from a few lakhs in salaries to the accommodation being provided to them.
The situation has come to a point where the largest domestic carrier's Indian pilots' association - Society for
Welfare of Indian Pilots (SWIP) - has conducted a poll among all its 631 members on this issue. The SWIP ballot paper says talks with management on this issue have not yielded any result.
They have asked members whether they feel the management is doing enough to resolve the critical issues of Indian national pilots.
Sources said a majority of the respondents feel that managements are not doing enough to resolve critical issues of local pilots.
The two other questions are related to salary vis-a-vis other players and whether a union be formed?
Pilots of a legacy carrier point out that expat fliers get between $8,000 and $13,000.
An Indian commander, on the other hand, has a monthly salary of about Rs 5 lakh and after tax, his take home is over Rs 3 lakh.
Low cost carrier SpiceJet's executive president CEO Siddantha Sharma said, "The salaries of both expat and Indian pilots are roughly the same. Expats are given accommodation that may cost about Rs 60-70,000 more."
On their part, many Indian pilots allege their airlines could go on hiring expats thanks to a weak dollar.
17/12/07 Saurabh Sinha/Times of India

Mumbai: Mumbai boy Cleon Alvares, 25, is lying somewhere in the alligator-and-snake-infested swamps of Everglades in Florida, 8,800 miles away from home.
He is alive, his father Christopher hopes against hope as the 48-year-old gets on a plane for the first time to go to Lantana from where his son took off on a Cessna for a solo training flight on Saturday.
The 31-year-old plane went down after colliding with another.
“My son told me before leaving for the US that he would show me the world from the clouds one day. I have never been on a plane,” a tearful Christopher said.
Cleon had left in July to train to become a professional pilot at a Florida academy (Kemper Aviation), 99 per cent of whose students are Indian. Another of its students from Mumbai, 18-year-old Arjun Chhikkara, died in a crash in October.
The middle-class Alvareses had paid Rs 30 lakh for the 10-month course at Kemper Aviation, part-owned by NRI Akshay Mohan who is a pilot with Kingfisher Airlines.
Cleon later told his family that Kemper’s safety standards were abominable and living conditions poor. “The door of a plane came off once while he was learning to fly,” said his sister Joyce, 21.
Now, even as Christopher leaves with an impossible prayer in his heart that Cleon — officially “untraced” — be found alive, his son has been declared dead by the aviation school.
“They have put up an obituary note for him at the academy,” Joyce said.
Akshay Mohan, a former student of the academy, recruits students from India. The India head office in Delhi is run by his father, Col (Retd) Chander Mohan. “It is an unfortunate incident. We are trying to mend the loose ends,” Col Mohan said.
But Arjun’s family is planning legal action against the academy which, like many other aviation schools in the US, scouts for students in Mumbai.
“We were told the engine of his plane (a 30-year-old Piper) failed,” said his mother Mona Chhikkara.
Arjun had often spoken about engine failures on training flights.
Complaints against Kemper can also be found on www.airnav.com, a US-based pilots networking site.
The local sheriff’s office in Lantana has told Cleon’s family the search will continue through this week but the possibility of finding his remains is thin.
“They found the body of the other pilot, a US citizen, but are not willing to spend any more time looking for my brother or his remains,” Joyce said.
Four days after Cleon left to pursue his dream on July 4, a teenager from Kerala, Varsha Gopinath, was killed in a mid-air collision in the Philippines. She, too, was on a training flight on a Cessna.
The aviation boom and the shortage of pilot training schools in India is driving hordes of young men and women to unknown flying schools that lack even the basic safety standards. Many boys from Mumbai have enrolled with Kemper.
15/12/07 Samyabrata Ray Goswami/The Telegraph

New Delhi: The Supreme Court will decide whether pilots are workmen and if they can claim benefits under law in case of premature termination of their employment.
An apex court bench headed by Justice Ashok Bhan on a petition filed by Jet Airways today stayed a Bombay High Court order directing the Central Government to refer a dispute between the airline and its sacked pilot senior commander Cedric D'Silva to the Central Industrial Tribunal.
It also issued notice to the Union Government through Ministry of Labour, along with Regional Labour Commissioner, Conciliation Officer, and D'Silva -- who had challenged Jet Airways' order terminating his services as a pilot before the High Court.
The High Court had observed that the existing position in law was that all pilots, whether co-pilot or chief pilot, were workmen as they performed highly skilled technical work.
Opposing the High Court order, Jet Airways in its appeal said senior commanders, being pilots-in-command, were incharge of the entire crew of the aircraft and also exercised full managerial and supervisory powers with regard to ground personnel, government authorities and even passengers.
13/12/07 PTI/Economic Times

One day after the House of Representatives unanimously approved a measure increasing the mandatory retirement age for US commercial pilots to 65, the Senate voted its approval for the legislation as well, sending the bill to the president's desk.
As ANN reported, Minnesota Congressman James Oberstar -- sponsor of the "Fair Treatment for Experienced Pilots Act" -- pulled the measure from the broader FAA Reauthorization Act, which Congress passed in September, when it became clear the Senate wasn't going to act on its version of FAA reauthorization before the end of the year.
If signed into law by President Bush, the legislation will update a 1960 FAA ruling forcing pilots from the cockpit at age 60. The measure would bring US standards into compliance with international regulations; the International Civil Aviation Organization adopted the age 65 retirement standard in November 2006.
Under the bill, pilots who choose to fly commercially past age 60 will need to have their medical certificates renewed every six months under the measure, according to The Associated Press, and submit to a line check twice a year. They'll also need to participate in additional training and qualification programs.
Flights departing US airports for foreign destinations would require at least one pilot under the age of 60, if a pilot between 60-65 is also part of the flight crew.
13/12/07 Aero-News Network, US

Beijing: A pilot shortage is throttling the dramatic and safe ascent of China's aviation industry, leaving hundreds of new Boeing and Airbus jetliners on order without pilots to fly them.
China will need an average of 2,500 pilots each year for the next two decades to fill cockpits, but it can't meet the demand.
So for the first time, foreign pilots are taking command of some Chinese airliners. Citing the pilot shortage as one factor, Aviation Minister Yang Yuanyuan recently declared that the industry is growing "too fast."

China isn't the only country with a pilot shortage. Airlines across East Asia — and around the world — are grounding flights and offering special pay packages to poach aviators from as far away as Brazil, Russia and Indonesia.
Chinese aviation regulators say the nation will need an additional 9,000 or more pilots by 2010, as national airlines add jetliners at the rate of up to 150 a year.
"But speaking truthfully, we only have the capacity to train about 7,000, leaving us short 2,000 pilots," said Gao Hongfeng, the deputy head of the General Administration of Civil Aviation of China.
China's Big Three airlines — Air China, China Eastern and China Southern — are working hard to deal with the pilot shortage.
Nearly 20 startup airlines wait for approval to operate, and a green light may not come soon. One reason: The startups don't have pilots.
China Southern sends some pilots abroad for training, namely to a flight-training school it operates near Perth in western Australia.
In response to pilot shortages, Alteon Training, the commercial flight-training arm of Boeing, is offering a condensed jetliner-flight course that can train pilots in half the time, as short as 12 to 18 months, without students ever flying small aircraft, such as Cessnas, first. Students spend more time in simulators than in cockpits. The company is moving a simulator-equipped flight center from Kunming in southern China to Shanghai.
13/12/07 Tim Johnson/McClatchy Newspapers/Seattle Times, United States

New Delhi: Facing a desperate shortage of trained local commanders, Indian carriers' hunt for them abroad is now taking them to places where people may know how to fly but not speak English. The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) last week shot down the request of two foreign pilots for getting their commercial pilot licences validated in India. The reason — A Brazilian pilot being eyed by Jet Airways was not proficient in English and the other hired by a general aviation company did not have his papers in order.
Earlier this year, as many as 25 foreign flyers were turned down for this reason. The second pilot, an American, did not have all his papers and was rejected.
On its part, Jet Airways — which has the highest number of foreign pilots among Indian carriers — says it uses the service of an expat only after being cleared by DGCA. "When the required clearance is not given, we don't hire such a foreign pilot," said an airline spokesperson.
Indian carriers currently have a total of 804 foreign pilots, with Jet leading the pack with 271, followed by Deccan-Kingfisher combine at 244 fliers. All of Jet's 58 Cat-III compliant pilots are foreigners, according to the aviation ministry.
With the dollar weakening, more and more Indian carriers are looking to hire foreign pilots. Moreover, with its high pay package and a retirement age of 65 (as opposed to 60 in the West), India is also emerging as a natural destination for such fliers.
13/12/07 Saurabh Sinha/Times of India

In a small house in India tonight, a father will remain haunted by thoughts that his only son lies somewhere in the Everglades, alone in the darkness with nothing but muck and alligators, his family 8,800 miles away.
As he has done every night since his son's plane crashed into another above the swamp Saturday, Christopher Alvares will say a prayer from the other side of the world for 25-year-old Cleon. He will remember what his boy said about one day flying back to Mumbai from Lantana, taking his father up into the clouds, and showing him what the world looked like from up high. Today, Christopher Alvares will leave India for the first time, make his way to that murky corner of the Everglades, and, he hopes, fly his son back home.
"I want my boy to be found," Alvares said from his home in Mumbai Wednesday. "If I had known that some day he would lose his life there, I would have never let him go. I need to take my son home." Cleon Alvares was identified by his flight school, Kemper Aviation, as the student pilot killed on a solo training run from the Lantana Airport Saturday. Authorities have not officially identified Alvares as the deceased pilot, because they have not found his body during their three day search.
Authorities plan to search for his remains today and again on Wednesday. Alvares' family, though, clings to the hope he might have survived.
Even if his son is dead, Christopher Alvares says, the sheriff's office must not stop looking for his remains.
"It's very important that we know for sure," he said.
Alvares' sister, Joyce, 21, said the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office should continue looking for Cleon no matter how long the search takes.
"If they had a loved one out there, they would be digging into the swamp until the very last moment," she said.
Handsome, wavy-haired, and six feet tall, Cleon Alvares left Mumbai, the former Bombay, for Lantana on July 4, looking for his own piece of the American dream. Since childhood, he had hopes of becoming a pilot, of being called "captain." After getting a degree in information technologies at Khalsa College in Matunga, India, he had studied aviation in Mumbai. Alvares was intensely ambitious, his family said, and wanted to become a professional pilot as fast as he could. So when a representative from Kemper Aviation found him in Mumbai and pitched him on the idea of fast-tracking his training in Lantana, he couldn't resist. "They told my son they were the best flight school in America," said Christopher Alvares, who owns a construction business he named Cleon. "They said it would take 10 months. Then he would come back to India, earn a good living, and do well in life.
"My son had big dreams.We dreamed big for him." Family agreed to pay for Alvares' education. He flew to America, rented a small room in Lantana, and studied every day, logging more than 100 hours of flight time. Saturday afternoon, he called his mother, Jennifer, just as he always did before taking to the air.
"Please pray for me," he told her. "God is great." Alvares, whose family is Roman Catholic, asked his mother to call him that night, after he landed.
But just before 3 p.m., his dream ended some 1,900 feet above the mud and sawgrass of the vast Everglades. His single-engine Cessna 152 collided with a twin-engine Piper piloted by Harry Duckworth III, of Pennsylvania, a veteran pilot who had flown more than 30 years without mishap. Duckworth's body was pulled from the muck Monday, along with a small piece of what investigators believe might be Alvares' remains.
The fatal crash was the second in recent months involving student pilots from Kemper, which trains about 90 students, most from India. On Oct. 27, a Piper P-28A took off from Lantana airport and crashed into a golf course west of Boynton Beach, killing instructor Anders Selberg and student Arjun Chhikara and critically injuring passenger Chandrashekhar Godghate. Investigators found an improperly assembled fuel filter amid the wreckage, but the cause of that crash has not been determined.
Chhikara's father called Christopher Alvares after Saturday's crash to talk about their sons, and about Lantana-based Kemper Aviation.
"I wish I'd never let him go there," Alvares said.
A federal investigator is investigating the cause of the crash. He will release a preliminary report within the next week.
Sheriff's divers have the exceedingly difficult task of looking for remains. They have spent three days wading into fuel-tainted, blackened water, digging their hands into thick mud pierced by jagged pieces of wreckage and surrounded by alligators and snakes. They have combed every inch of the quarter-mile crash zone, but have no way of knowing exactly where Alvares' remains lie.
"We wouldn't treat this any other way if it was our family members," said sheriff's office spokeswoman Teri Barbera. "We're doing everything we can."
"He always wanted to fly high, wanted to do something different so that he could take care of our family," said Joyce Alvares. "He said to my dad, ëI'll take you all over the world, through the skies, and you won't have to work so hard anymore.'"
12/12/07 Kevin Deutsch/Palm Beach Post, United States

New Delhi: India"s rapidly growing airline industry — already plagued by decaying infrastructure, frequent delays and financial losses — is now facing a pilot shortage.
The domestic airline industry"s 47 percent growth rate has led the country"s dozen-odd carriers, many of which are less than five years old, to scour the globe for qualified captains or commanders.
Going abroad to find pilots is relatively new; when the scramble for pilots began two years ago, airlines would just poach each others" staffs. The practice continued until the beginning of this year, when the major Indian carriers agreed to a no-poaching pact.
But the hiring spree is not expected to slow any time soon. Currently, there are 3,000 pilots in India — about 600 of whom are foreigners — and almost all are captains with thousands of hours of flying experience.
They can take home between $120,000 and $160,000 a year, with overtime.
The pilot shortage is not unique to India; pilots are in high demand in Japan, the United States and the Middle East. In India, though, the problem is part of a larger skilled-worker shortage in the country"s flourishing economy.
To better prepare themselves for a continued dearth of pilots, airlines are sending promising cadets for training in the United States.
Still, most experts say four or five years will pass before the large numbers of foreign pilots can be pared down and Indian first officers will be able to take over most captain"s seats.
13/12/07 Daniel Pepper/Washington Times, US

National Aviation Company of India Ltd. (NACIL), the entity formed by the merger of Air India and Indian is now on a recruitment drive. The national carrier is looking for Trainee Pilots with B737-800 endorsement, Trainee Pilots belonging General as well as Scheduled Caste/ Scheduled Tribe/Other Backward Class communities, B777-200/300 Expat Pilots and Operations Training Instructors, Human Factors & CRM Facilitators.
The notification invites applications to fill up vacancies in Air India Air Transport Services Limited (AIATSL) also, the subsidiary of Air India that provide ground handling services.

Walk-in interview for type rated B737-800 first officers is to be conducted for a whole year that started 3rd of this month. It would continue up to 2nd December 2008. The interviews are at the Office of Capt. M.Gupta, Addl.General Manager-Ops., Operations Training Building, 2nd floor, Old Airport, Santa Cruz (East), Mumbai 400 029. Call to for an appointment and just walk in. Telephone No. 26263379 (Capt.M.Gupta) or 26263539 (Ms.Stella) or 26263263 (Mrs. S.N.Patil). All the details regarding age, qualifications, experience etc are here.

The other programme to recruit Trainee Pilots from general as well as SC/ST/OBC categories is for Indian Citizens holding FAA/CAA/Australian or equivalent ICAO Licence. They must be in possession of Commercial Pilot’s Licence with an endorsement on Multi-Engine aircraft, FRTO licence COP/RTR, Instrument Rating (may not be current).
The last date for receipt of application is 24.12.2007.
The application form is here and the details are here.

SC/ST & OBC Pilots can participate in for yet another recruitment drive. The details are here and here is the application form .
Last date of receipt of application : 24.12. 2007

To apply for the posts of Operations Training Instructors, Human Factors & CRM Facilitators, read these instructions . (It seems there no particular application form for this posts).
The last date of receipt of application is 10.01.2008.

Expat pilots with B777-200/300 rating can apply online from here.

Air India Air Transport Services Limited (AIATSL) is looking for Junior Executive - Technical, Security Agent, Customer Agent, Ramp Service Agent. There will be written tests interviews, physical endurance tests, driving tests depending upon the nature of job.
Last date for receipt of Application is 5th January, 2008. Read the details here and get the application form from here.

"A lot of people, especially aspiring models and actresses, who fail to make it for whatever reason, see being part of the cabin crew as the next glamorous thing to do," says Harroop Saund who will soon take to the skies with Kingfisher Airlines, once her training with the airline is over.
It is this perceived glamor in the profession that is driving people across the country to take up courses, making way for aviation training institutes to mushroom.
The players in this segment are looking at adding more centers both in India and abroad. UB Group recently announced that its training arm, Kingfisher Training Academy (KTA), will add 12 centers by February; it is also open to starting schools in Colombo and the Middle East.
Air hostess Academy (AHA), on its part, said it will open schools in the UK, Dubai and Sydney besides boosting its local presence.
The international push is also there from Avalon, which says it will follow in parent Aptech's footsteps and open schools both in India and abroad.
Frankfinn Institute, one of the largest players in this segment with presence in 95 cities, has already embarked on the international route with a center in Dubai.
The entry of UB Group which also runs Kingfisher Airlines into this space seems to have had a catalytic effect.
Frankfinn has 120 centers in 95 cities across the country. Avalon currently has 36 centers in India which they plan to hike to 40 by March 2008. AHA, on the other hand, is adding 10 more centers in the country, taking the total number of centers in the country to 40.
By 2010, KTA plans to open franchises in 25 centers across the country.
12/12/07 Nirmal John/DNA Money/Sify.com

As crews on Tuesday wrapped up the recovery of two small airplanes that collided over the Everglades, a federal investigator began crafting his initial report on the incident.
"I have sufficient pieces to draw a picture [of the crash]," National Transportation Safety Board investigator Paul Cox said as more wreckage was recovered from the muck and water in the Everglades. "I will supplement that with radar tracks and voice communications."
The planes, a Cessna 152 and a Piper Twin Comanche, crashed about 3 p.m. Saturday in a trapezoid-shaped area where pilots practice maneuvers over the Arthur R. Marshall Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge in southwest Palm Beach County, near the Broward County line.
Crews on airboats have worked over the past three days to recover the bodies of the pilots and debris.
A shirt floating among twisted pieces of debris led workers to the body of Henry Duckworth, 56, of Waverly, Pa., who was flying the Piper from Ocala to Pompano Air Park.
Investigators are performing a DNA analysis on other remains to see if they belong to the Cessna pilot. That plane was registered to Kemper Aviation of Lantana, and the company identified the pilot as Cleon Alvares, 25, of Mumbai, India.
Alvares was a student and had logged more than 100 hours of flight time since he arrived in the United States in July.
His body had not been found by Tuesday.
Most of the wreckage was recovered by Tuesday morning, but crews from Air and Sea Crash Recovery Inc. went out again into the saw grass and muck to retrieve any other bits of debris that fit onto their airboats.
12/12/07 Chrystian Tejedor/South Florida Sun-Sentinel, US

A white shirt floating among twisted pieces of plane debris Monday led investigators to the body of a Pennsylvania pilot killed in a midair collision over a remote section of the Everglades.
Divers searching in a "crater" nearby pulled the body of Harry Duckworth, 56, of Waverly, Pa., from the murky water. The body was about 100 feet from one of the plane engines, Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office spokesman Paul Miller said. They found credit cards and identification in his name with the body, Miller said.
Searchers also found attached to one of the planes some remains they think belong to the second pilot killed in the weekend crash, Miller said. That man was identified Monday as Cleon Alvares, 25, of Mumbai, India, by Jeff Rozelle, owner of Lantana-based Kemper Aviation where Alvares was a student.
(This is the second crash in two months involving Kemper Aviation. On October 26, the flying school's plane went down at Boynton Beach, Florida, US, killing an Indian student and a Sweedish flight instructor and injuring another Indian student. See the reports here and here and here.
- EDITOR, AvIndia).
Alvares was flying a company-owned Cessna 152 through an "alert area" where pilots practice maneuvers when the two planes collided about 3 p.m. Saturday.
The wreckage of the Cessna and Duckworth's Piper Twin Comanche rained down over a half-mile swath of swamp about a mile west of the end of Lox Road, near the Palm Beach County-Broward County line.
The South Florida Sun-Sentinel received an e-mail from Neil Alvares, who identified himself as the student pilot's cousin.
"His parents are in shock and we have to yet get a confirmation from official sources," he wrote. "We are praying fervently that he survives because he had just come to the U.S. for the pilot training course and he is very young and the only son of my uncle."
Alvares had logged more than 100 flight hours since he came to the United States in July, according to Rozelle, the owner of the Lantana flight school where the Cessna was based.
"He was a very popular and well-liked student," he wrote in a statement released Monday. "He studied hard, and took his career in aviation very seriously. He will be dearly missed."
Miller said the Sheriff's Office hoped to positively identify the remains believed to be Alvares through DNA tests.
Recovery crews and an investigator from the National Transportation Safety Board plan to return to the site today to continue the search for Alvares' body and recovery of remaining pieces of the two aircrafts.
Although the crews had recovered about 80 percent of the wreckage Monday, what caused the two airplanes to collide was still a mystery.
11/12/07 Chrystian Tejedor/ South Florida Sun-Sentinel, US