Flight path
Seeing all kinds of aircraft taking off from and landing at Bhagalpur airport, close to his home, a young Suraj Pandey quite fancied the thought of piloting those flying machines one day. “My mother says that ever since I started talking, I always said, ‘I want to be a 
pilot’,” says the 29-year-old.
Talking about his town, which has an official literacy rate of 45 per cent and where even a clerk is seen as highly educated, Pandey says, “It is a small place where people don’t know much about aeroplanes.”
His dream of becoming a pilot, however, could not be realised — he could not get into the Indira Gandhi Rashtriya Uran Akademi, Raebareli, for a commercial pilot’s licence; and family finances did not permit training in a private academy. There were no education loan facilities in those days. So for Pandey, the next best thing to flying was making planes, for which he decided to become an aeronautical engineering.
IITs were out, because their aerospace engineering programmes were more about space and rocket science. “There were limited options in terms of the number of approved institutions,” recalls Pandey, who then enrolled for the Aeronautical Society of India’s (ASI) Associate Membership Examination and joined an institute in Dehradun that prepares candidates for the exam.
Passing the AME is equivalent to getting a Bachelor’s degree in aeronautical engineering from an Indian institute. After he cleared the exam, ASI sent Pandey for a year’s training at Hindustan Aeronautics Limited’s (HAL) avionics division — as he specialised in avionics — near Amethi, where he worked with a special group on testing sets for fighter planes.
After over two years as manager (technical) at a private airline in New Delhi, he is now manager (regulatory affairs) at a service provider and authorised service centre for an Italian helicopter company in the Capital. Pandey’s role primarily is to ensure flight safety and operation by preparing and updating technical literature and publications.
Regulatory authorities approve the manuals he scripts. In the operations support aspect, Pandey monitors training and licensing of pilots, prepares documents required for renewal, issue of and endorsement on licences. Apart from this, he ensures Civil Aviation Requirements (CAR) compliance for the purpose of issue of certificate of registration, certificate of airworthiness, permit endorsement and type certifications for every new type of aircraft to be imported for transport services — getting it done from the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA).
HC Bhatia, secretary (administration), ASI, says, “There’s a reasonably good demand so far [for aeronautical engineers]. It should be improving.” Yet, he admits, the meltdown has squeezed avenues. Fresh recruitment “might be getting restricted” but “the situation is very encouraging at this stage. However, you have to compete,” says Bhatia.
YS Chauhan, head, department of aeronautical engineering, PEC University of Technology, formerly Punjab Engineering College, 
Chandigarh, says, “When I passed from the PEC in 1972, there were no jobs for aeronautical engineers in India. From our batch, one student was selected for HAL. So, I did MTech. Some went to the US.” But over the past decade, the job market changed because of the entry of private airlines and the software boom. “Earlier, 60-70 per cent of the graduates went to software companies. This time about 70 per cent have gone into core engineering (HAL, Defence Research and Development Organisation etc),” says Chauhan.
Employers include HAL, DRDO, Indian Space Research Organisation, the armed forces, government and private airlines, helicopter operators such as Pawan Hans Helicopters Limited, National Aerospace Laboratories, Airports Authority of India, Aeronautical Development Agency, technical consultants and DGCA.
Author: Rahat Bano
Date: 30th Sep 2009
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