UP govt to take two aircraft on rent for ‘VVIPs’

Officials said that the government is planning to sell Bell 230 (1995 made) as it has completed its flying life span and Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav often prefers Bell 412 to fly within UP. Official said that another helicopter is urgently needed for reserve in the fleet.

“Exploring the possibility of hiring two aeroplanes along with all the required crew members, offers have been invited by the Indian aircraft operators having Non-Scheduled Operators Permit issued by DGCA for operation of both these aircraft. If their proposals were found feasible according to rent charges and other conditions, it would be forwarded to CM for approval,” said an official in Civil Aviation Department. The rent of these aircraft are expected to be high as that will also include the salaries of crew members.

According to officials, the government is interested in hiring Falcon following its advanced features providing more comfort to passenger. Earlier, the government had planned to procure a Falcon but its high cost (around Rs 200 crore) forced the state government to drop the idea.

Falcon has room-size spacious cabin and it features advanced technologies so that passenger can work, rest and be entertained in comfort during travel. It has comfortable sofa-size chairs and one of that could be unfolded to be a bed. There is a GPS connected screen in front of the passenger seat that will display the location of aircraft traveler seated behind the pilot. In other aircraft, only the pilot get information about location of aircraft that he find out after calculating the coordinates displayed on the screen in front of him.

“Falcon has a configuration to provide more space to the VIP passenger in the cabin,” said an official. Falcon would have nine seats for passengers and crew members with two seats for pilots. Falcon is large in size but it can land on short runways too.

Hawker 900XP on the other had will have eight seats for passengers and crew members and two for pilots. It is smaller in size in comparison of Falcon but it requires long runway for landing. Both Falcon 2000 and Hawker 900XP will be jet propelled but rent of latter will be low that Falcon.

“The department has put a condition that aircraft should not be more than 10 years old and that should be VIP configured and well equipped,” an official said. Both the models will be equipped with Flight Data Recorder (FDR) and Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR) that comes into use to find the reason of any accident.

The state government is already in process of procuring one helicopter and an aircraft and offers have already been received from the manufacturers. “Around 10 offers have been received which are under consideration of the government. Till these aircraft are procured, services of two aeroplanes can be used on rent,” official said.

Official said that existing Hawker aeroplane is not being used because government has no pilot for that at present. “The department has made appointment of a pilot for he will take around two months to join. So the government wants to hire a Hawker900XP at the earliest,” official said.

The government has allocated Rs 80 crore for procurement of these flying machines in the budget of fiscal 2014-15 and officials in Civil Aviation department said that the budget would sufficient for procurement of both new helicopter and aeroplane.