China's Wuhan Helicopter is planning to add fixed-wing trainers in a bid to attract more foreign students to its fledgling training centre.
Chief executive Zhang Dinghe says Wuhan is in talks to buy one or two second-hand Shijiazhuang Y-5s, a Chinese version of the Antonov An-2. Wuhan's pilot training school already operates three Enstrom helicopters, but since it opened in 1998 has only trained about 12 pilots, including two Japanese.
The Y-5s would be based at a new airport that Wuhan is building south of the city to house its training centre, including dormitories, and a new factory that will assemble Enstrom helicopters. Zhang says Wuhan has no ambitions to manufacture fixed-wing aircraft, but foresees an opportunity to offer a wide range of training services as the general aviation market in China opens up.
Airspace and other restrictions have historically made it difficult to set up training centres in China. But over the last two years centres have opened and Chinese airlines and helicopter operators have started to shift training from abroad. As capacity at these centres continues to increase they are looking to woo aircraft operators from other Asian countries, who currently send their pilots to Australia or North America for training. China would be a closer and potentially cheaper alternative.
For example, Bombardier and Shangdong Airlines in 2001 set up the Qingdao Fei Sheng Training Centre to train Chinese airline pilots using a CRJ200 simulator. Bombardier international group vice president Robert Greenhill says the centre hopes to begin training pilots from other Asian countries, including India and Japan, within the next 12 months.
Source: Flight International
