Director general civil aviation SNA Zaidi said these corridors, where no fixed wing aircraft would be allowed to fly, would not only ensure safety, but also enhance capacity and efficiency of helicopter operations.
Dedicated air corridors for helicopter operations in and out of the congested airspace over Delhi and Mumbai airports would operationalised very soon, a top DGCA official said today.
"We have notified separate air corridors in Mumbai and Delhi airports last week. We will now soon get them operationalised through the Airports Authority of India's air traffic management set-up," director general civil aviation SNA Zaidi said in New Delhi.
He said these corridors, where no fixed wing aircraft would be allowed to fly, would not only ensure safety, but also enhance capacity and efficiency of helicopter operations.
Mumbai and Delhi have the highest density of chopper operations. The civil helicopter industry has long been demanding segregation of helicopter and aircraft traffic to deal with congestion.
Earlier, addressing a seminar on civil helicopter operations, Zaidi said the DGCA would soon come out with draft regulations to bring the aircraft and choppers of state governments, their maintenance, operations and other issues in the ambit of a single regulatory framework.
"We will hold consultations with state governments on this framework before finalising them," he said.
Road transport and highways minister Kamal Nath strongly supported suggestions to have helipads along national highways, particularly accident-prone ones.
The minister, who is himself a trained helicopter pilot, recommended compulsory simulator training for chopper pilots every two years to keep them abreast of the latest developments in the field.
He said the helicopter manufacturers should facilitate pilot training for the first five years of a chopper's life at their own cost. If need be, "the manufacturers can build in the costs in the price of the helicopters".
The proposal for compulsory simulator training for pilots every two years was immediately accepted by the DGCA, with Zaidi saying he would positively consider the suggestion.
RK Tyagi, chief of the state-owned chopper firm Pawan Hans, made several recommendations to enhance the role of the "versatile flying machine" in India, saying it could be used for services ranging from emergency medical services, search
and rescue and disaster management to powerline washing and maintenance of law and order.
Maintaining that there were currently 268 registered choppers in India, he said despite few mishaps, including the one that claimed the life of Andhra Pradesh chief minister YSR Reddy, the number of accidents has gone down significantly in 2009.
Tyagi also floated the idea of having one helipad each in all 618 districts of the country with at least one chopper under the District Magistrate's command for law and order maintenance or to meet any other exigency.
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