Mihin Lanka begins training for third batch of trainee First Officers

Tuesday, 18 June 2013 00:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

An innovative program has been put into place by Mihin Lanka with the view to filling the berth for First Officers, with the third batch of these trainees starting their extensive course recently at the premises of Aspire.

Initially a very impressive batch of 57 applicants showed interest in the program out of which 43 were then short listed. 38 candidates faced a state-of-the-art ADAPT screening process out of which a final 11 were selected for due process.

The selected applicants will now undergo an introductory grounding for the period of a month and during this period their knowledge will be enhanced and upgraded to the required level that is necessary for a candidate to initiate an Airbus A320 Type Rating Course.

The grounding process will be under the expert purview of 2 thoroughly qualified instructors, Gerhad Jhanz and Sadoon Muthalib who are both ex-flight engineers with a wealth of experience with B727/Lockheed L1011 Tri-Star’s and B747’s. Both Gerhad and Sadoon possess over 30 years of experience as Instructors, with an overall exposure of 40 years in the aviation industry.

Additionally the knowledge and experience that’s brought to the table by Mihin’s Resident Captains PujithaJayakody (Director Flight Operations), Themiya Abeywickrama (Chief Pilot Training and Standards) and Jayantha Jeewandara having first hand flying experience with the Lockheed Tri-Star L1011/AirBusA340/A330/A320 is invaluable.

The trio has a total of over 80 years in the airline business and are presently designated check pilots for Civil Aviation Authority of Sri Lanka and have also operated in the same capacity for Indian Department of Civil Aviation.

Once the finally selected 11 applicants have completed their grounding they will then be trained with Sri Lankan Type Rating Training Organization, who possesses a team of experienced air bus aircraft instructors. They will undergo VACBI (Visually Added Computer Base Instruction), fix based simulator and full flight simulator training and on completion successful candidates will then be afforded an actual aircraft for line training and fly with 12,000+ hour pilot instructors on Mihin Lanka aircraft.

A spokesman for the airline said that the program has worked like clockwork and if progress continues as planned a batch of four First Officers will be ready for duty within six to seven months, while the entire batch of 11 will be fully operational within 11 months.