Assam Flying Club to approach North Eastern Council for funds

 GUWAHATI, Oct 20 – The Assam Flying Club is planning to seek financial assistance from the North Eastern Council (NEC) to bring the Club back on the rails. However, it will take some time before the Club resumes training as several other issues will have to be dealt with before that.

Talking to The Assam Tribune, Bikrom Singha Lahkar, who has recently been appointed the secretary of the Club, said that at present the Club has two aircraft, one Cessna and one Pushpak. However, the Pushpak is not in a serviceable condition and the Cessna would have to be repaired to start training with the same.

Lahkar said that after a thorough check up of the engine of the Cessna, the company was informed about the present condition of the LYCO series engine of the aircraft and necessary steps would be taken to repair the same after receiving suggestions from the French company. He said that according to preliminary assessment, about Rs 30 lakh would be required to repair the aircraft and to bring the Club back on the rails.

At present, the Assam Flying Club has only one employee, who is an accountant, and a number of persons, both technical and non-technical, will have to be appointed to resume functioning of the Club. Lahkar said that they would be able to bring test pilots from other flying clubs of the country after the Cessna aircraft is repaired. But to resume training, at least one flying instructor in charge and one assistant flying instructor along with a maintenance engineer would have to be appointed.

It is a fact that a Club cannot function with only one aircraft and Lahkar said that the Aero Club of India had allotted two aircraft for the Assam Flying Club way back in 2008, which were not brought to the State due to reasons best known to the people at the helm of affairs. Efforts would be made to persuade the Aero Club of India to re-allot the aircraft.

http://www.assamtribune.com