Page 80 - HeliOps Frontline Issue 26

80 HELIOPS FRONTLINE / ISSUE 26 / 2019

The Romanian Navy
operates three
IAR 330 Puma
Naval helicopters
(registration 140-
141-142). The last
helicopter delivered is
shown here during a
slight turn at a training
sortie above the Black
Sea coast.

console. Optionally, the helicopters can be equipped with a Dillon
Aero 7.62 M134 rotary machine gun or Soviet-built DShK 12.7 heavy
machine gun and torpedoes.

Selection and training

With the reintroduction of maritime aviation, the Romanian
Navy also created a demand for pilot selection and Flight Training.
The first pilots of the ‘Black Sea Knights’ were trained at Aurel
Vlaicu Flight School, the Romanian Air Force Application School
based at Boboc. Mitric: ‘All eight initial Puma Naval pilots were
naval officers in the rank of lieutenant at the moment they were
selected in December 2005. At Boboc Air Base, these students flew
approximately hundred hours on the license built IAR-316 Alouette
III. After the successful completion of their initial flight training,
the students continued their training at Boboc with sixty to eighty
hours on the IAR 330L SOCAT. In this way, our pilots received their