Indigenous trades school gets new helicopter for training

Students at the Saskatchewan Indian Institute of Technologiesare flyinghigher this week.

On Friday, the Saskatoon school's aircraft maintenance engineering program celebrated its new Sikorsky S-76A helicopter maintenance trainer.

"[It]allows us to provide a greater hands-on experience to our students in a wide array of systems typical of modern helicopters," said SIITpresident Riel Bellegarde.

The recently-retired, $1.3-million helicopter comes with tablet-based electronic technical manuals that will help students troubleshoot maintenance issues with interactive graphics.

The maintenance trainer comes as a part of a deal that saw the Royal Canadian Air Force buy 28 Sikorsky CH-148 maritime helicopters and anti-surface warfare capability. The military helicopters should be ready by 2021.