This article first appeared in Aviation Week & Space Technology.
The U.S. Army is short of meeting its annual requirement to train helicopter pilots by about 300, says Gen. Martin Dempsey, who oversees the service’s Training and Doctrine Command.
With high demand for helicopters in Iraq and Afghanistan, this shortage is frustrating commanders abroad who have enough airframes to accomplish their missions, but lack the crews to fly them. Crew training has been hindered by insufficient funding in personnel accounts.
The Pentagon requests 1,498 pilots annually to graduate from training here. However, the service is now producing only about 1,200 pilots per year.
About 70% of the shortage is in the Reserve components, with the remainder among active duty personnel, Dempsey says.
If Congress approves a proposal from Defense Secretary Robert Gates to boost funding by about $500 million in Fiscal 2010 for personnel associated with helicopter operations, Dempsey says he can close that gap in about two years.
This money would support training for pilots, flight crews and maintenance staff. Additionally, it would help pay for more simulation time for helicopter pilots. Prior to the war, about 18–20% of a student’s time was dedicated to simulator operations. Now, about 39% of the training is done in simulators. And, that number is expected to increase to 45%, according to Dempsey.
Meanwhile, Army officials have devised a new training process for helicopter pilots to ensure they are more proficient when they leave school and enter their operational units: Flight School XXI. Prior to the recent wars, Army officials used a three-phased approach to training helicopter pilots. The first, readiness level 3 (RL-3), provided flight skills but no tactics training. RL-2 provided skills and tactics tailored for a specific platform and RL-1 provided environmental training for the types of terrain where the soldier would be deployed. Ft. Rucker’s training regimen provided only RL-3.
Now, however, through the Flight School XXI concept, pilots coming out of Ft. Rucker are proficient in their weapon systems (RL-2) and require only the additional environmental training for a forward deployment.
Read the rest of this story, see the USN’s newest, biggest gator, check out the mysterious UAV of KAF and speculate on Israel’s interest in Stealth Eagles from our Aviation Week friends, exclusively on Military.com.
– Christian
{ 15 comments… read them below or add one }
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X train Marine & Navy copter crews?
Seek out ex vets trained for copters?
( IE HI state).
Best bet to meet manpower.
I just hope that the budget is enough for our pilots to fly a safe air craft. =)
Do Army helicopter pilots get anything approaching this?
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“The Air Force tries to regulate them like delicate instruments, with pills to clog their bowels and pills to clean their bowels, “go” pills to speed crews up and “no go” pills to slow them down. The crews are pampered, not out of kindness but out of necessity. The job demands a great deal of mental and emotional clarity. So the base at al Jaber is by no means a hardship post. Crew members share air-conditioned mobile homes with a bathroom and a shower, cable TV, a DVD player, and PlayStation 2. They have hearty food, workout facilities, and an officers’ club with a paperback library, twenty La-Z-Boy recliners, a big screen for movie viewing, a popcorn machine, and snacks (but no alcohol). The cable TV carries all the major networks and European MTV, and
ANYBODY WHO FLEW WITH OR TRAINED WITH DONALD CLARK OF DOTHAN ALA IS A FRIEND OF MINE MY PRAYERS ARE WITH HIS FAMILY. WATCH OUT FOR OVER HEAD ELECTRIC WIRES THAT YOU ALL HAVE NOT BEEN PRIVVY TOO WHEN NEW GRIDS ARE INSTALLED. ITS A GREAT LOSS FOR THE FAMILYS OF ALL FALLEN BROS. IN ANY WAR TRAININGMISSION, OR JUST A NITE ON THE TOWN WENT BAD THANKS FOR PROTECTING MY FREEDOM AND GOD SPEED TO GET HOME SAFE. VIRGIL USN 1969 1973
ANYBODY WHO FLEW WITH OR TRAINED WITH DONALD CLARK OF DOTHAN ALA IS A FRIEND OF MINE MY PRAYERS ARE WITH HIS FAMILY. WATCH OUT FOR OVER HEAD ELECTRIC WIRES THAT YOU ALL HAVE NOT BEEN PRIVVY TOO WHEN NEW GRIDS ARE INSTALLED. ITS A GREAT LOSS FOR THE FAMILYS OF ALL FALLEN BROS. IN ANY WAR TRAININGMISSION, OR JUST A NITE ON THE TOWN WENT BAD THANKS FOR PROTECTING MY FREEDOM AND GOD SPEED TO GET HOME SAFE. VIRGIL USN 1969 1973
Little Known fact about Coast Guard Helo Pilots in Vietnam war. SEE http://www.jacksjoint.com/cgvietnam.htm
In addition to the patrol boats and high indurance cutters, 12 Coast Guard aviators flew in Vietnam between 1968 and 1967. They flew with the Air Force as part of a service exchange program out of Tuy Hua and Da Nang, Vietnam, as well as from Thailand and the Philippines.
Helicopter pilots flew Air Force HH-3s (known as the Jolly Green Giants) and later HH-53s, while fixed wing pilots flew Air Force C-130s. These aviators flew hundreds of rescue missions over enemy-infested jungles. Their actions kept a lot off pilots out of prison camps.
One of the Coast Guard’s pilots was Lt. Jack Rittichier, who served as a pilot with the Air Force’s 37th Aerospace Rescue and Recovery Squadron. He was the first Coast Guard combat casualty in Vietnam. — killed in a mountainous region west of Danang, while attempting to rescue a downed U.S. fighter pilot. Rittichier’s helicopter came under hostile enemy fire and crashed in a ball of flame. A hanger at Coast Guard Air Station Detroit at Selfridge Air National Guard Base, Mich., is named in Ritticher’s honor.
Wish I was ayoung guy again.
Wish I was ayoung guy again.
I started primary flight training at Fort Wolters, Texas the first of March 1969, then I went to advanced flight training at Hunter Army Airfield, Fort Stewart, Georgia in mid July 1969, finishing training at the end of November 1969. There were only about 70 or so members in my class [69-37] that graduated and left for Vietnam in December 1969.
It is going to take the U.S. Army at least a year or more to put enough qualified pilots through training to get that 300 pilot shortfall caught up.
Does anyone know how one might go about applying for a NG WOCS position? I’m prior enlisted and physically ready to start training. Just need a foot in the door…
Hum. Maybe stop-loss & keeping helicopter pilots in theater for exceptionally long tours would do the trick.
Trying to decide how many people these days are willing to go into flight training to begin with. It is a recruitment issue? Is it a graduation issue? Retention issue?