Remembering late Flt Lt Abhijit Gadgil at air safety trust

Air Force cadets of the 121st course of NDA would now be graduating to Air Force Academy (AFA) to get trained on trainer aircraft Kiran,before being bifurcated to any one of Hawk,An-32,Dorniers or Chetak helicopters. “Kiran does not have a glass cockpit,so the cadets got to witness something beyond what they are about to experience in AFA. However,the rest of the aircraft or for that matter the newly talked Pilatus trainer aircraft are all glass cockpit aircraft. The training will thus help them understand how the cockpit of a modern,fifth/fourth generation aircraft looks like,” said Group Captain (retd) Sanjay Vidwans,flight instructor at the institute.

The sortie was also designed to give the cadets a feel of flying over AFA. Having taken off one of the runways at the academy,the 10-minute sorties gave the cadets an experience of flying over the AFA airfield. “This has been a unique experience for the cadets. We have had a discussion with the higher authorities and this experience might be incorporated in the NDA training,” said an NDA officer.

Captain (retd) Anil Gadgil,who taught them the basics of flying in the simulator besides answering their queries,said,”It is high time that we realise the importance of training in a simulator. While it gives actual,flying-like experience,it is also economical and safe.”