In the wake of a series of fatal military aviation accidents over the past few years, the US Army is launching a major overhaul of how to train new pilots focused on returning to basics.
Overhauls could be a rethinking of the type of aircraft used for training and a transition to a school building owned by the contractor.
“I think I have one sacred responsibility: to bring competent aviators to the government,” Major General Claire Gill, Commander of the Army Aviation Center of Excellence, said last month at the Army Aviation Conference in Nashville, Tennessee. “I don't know if I'm doing that with Spade right now.”
The fatal January 29 crash of the US Army Black Hawk helicopter and American Airlines passenger jet near Reagan National Airport in Washington, DC, has been a spurt of the Army air disaster disaster disaster of the past few years, and is at the forefront of the hearts of Army aviation leaders, seeking to curb aviation safety and improve aviation safety.
In addition to other efforts to emphasize a culture of rigorous training and safety, the Army has begun to rigorously watch the redevelopment of the basic training program at Fort Novosell, Alabama, fueled in the heaviest years in Army aviation history since 2007.
The Army discovered that an inexperienced crew “trains the headlights out and trains them to any level of effort.”
Now, the Army is on hyperdrive to rethink how to train aviators in an increasingly complex world where combat proficiency is declining and experience gaps at the highest levels.
Pivot the chopper
The motivation for making the change was exacerbated by the Army's decision to abolish the 2013 TH-67 training aircraft and replace it with a more expensive LUH-72A Lakota Light utility twin-engine helicopter.
The decision was a necessary matter. The Army faced the choice that it would have to comply with Congressional quarantine requirements, which required that all programs be cut equally across the board to avoid salami slices.
However, critics worried that Lakota was too exquisite and expensive for basic training.
“It's a very good helicopter,” Gill told Defense News in a recent interview. “But in some cases, we help students with things they don't want to help.”
For example, automated flight control systems “help head control. If you jump into a very simple aircraft, if you don't push the pedals that match the way the group applies, they will start to spin in a loop, and if you push too much, the other way around,” Gill said. “So it's the first time you've learned to hover. It's a bit of that dance. They help them, so they don't have that challenge in Lakota.”
The Army aviators who came out of basic training “we don't have that early struggle, so we really need to learn to control the plane,” he added.
It turns out that even Lakota, which is easy to fly, is difficult to maintain. Airbus, the manufacturer of Lakota, is headquartered in France. Calling company maintenance engineers when they need to address issues across the fleet can be against distance tyranny, Gill said.
A twin-engine helicopter requires twice as much components.
“You don't have to be a helicopter pilot or mechanic to understand that there is more maintenance,” Gill said. “Sometimes, that means more things break.”
Lakota cost the Army about $3,000 per hour. This is roughly the same as the Army's UH-60 Black Hawk, Gill said. Some of the training planes the Army is currently watching could cost between $500 and $1,300 an hour.
In 2020, the Army commissioned the investigation through the Boston Consulting Group, determining that its services could save “hundreds of millions of dollars” by moving to a single-engine trainer.
Additional research using the college of the William & Mary MBA Fellowship Program found that the model is preferred over the current government-owned and operated contractors or the model.
Boston Consulting said it was rehired to dig deeper into business case analysis of the basic aviator training coco model.
Course correction
The Army currently runs a pilot program along with the Robinson helicopter, which began in early April, sending some of its current flight students to Gainesville, Florida, where they learn to fly using the Robinson R66 helicopter and pass the Federal Aviation Administration's civilian pilot training program.
As part of the program, students will record five solo flight times. FAA Private Helicopter Certification takes 10 hours.
“I think flight in unsurveillanced fashion is extremely important for the development of mature aviators who hope to produce from the world's largest flight training program. The FAA is doing that.
“So the question is, what will happen at the backend of that final program? Are we going to produce less skilled aviators than we're building at Fort Novosel on UH-72?” asked Gill.
“I'm very interested in what this pilot program tells us,” he said.
If the Army chooses the Coco model to train aviators, many of the daily headaches faced by school building leaders will transfer to the company they were hired to train.
“The sparkle of the Coco Model is that it's not about me to worry about,” Gill said. “All I'm saying right now is, 'I want 1,350 pilots at the end of the year. You know how to do that.' ”
The number of helicopters required for the fleet, maintenance requirements, number of instructor pilots, and their experience level, and all other aspects of the training aviator are determined by industry partners.
The industry must have the tools to produce solid aviators.
“The need for better stick and ladder skills lies at the heart of both fighting preparation and mere safety,” Robinson Helicopter CEO David Smith told Defense News in a recent interview. “We're talking about advanced automation with some of these products that don't produce great sticks and rudder aviators.”
Choosing a simpler helicopter like the R66 “will save a lot of money,” Smith said.
Textron's Bell also aims to return to the Army Aviation Training Games after the service retires from TH-67 in support of Lakota.
“We intend to provide them with a solution for flight schools run by contractors owned by turnkey contractors,” Carl Coffman, Bell's vice president of military sales and strategy, told the Army Aviation Association's American Aviation Association Defense News last month.
Bell is pitching the 505 Jet Ranger X as part of the package, but Coffman said, “We are not trying to sell the Army on aircraft. We are trying to sell the service.”
Lockheed Martin announced last month that it would be pitching a turnkey solution.
Spool up the rotor
The Army spends around $1.5 billion each year running flight schools and produces 1,350 aviators, Gill said.
He admitted that the Army must pay to keep Lakotas in the fleet for a while to move into the new flight program.
“The challenge for the Army is that it costs more money in advance to do this,” he said.
The Army announced last month that it would close several programs, consolidate commands and restructure the formation of reorganizations.
Gill sees an opportunity to remove those squadrons. Money released from operational flight times could potentially lead to training time instead.
The industry must also be prepared to “own a considerable amount of risk” in addition to the funds the Army provides to establish new training programs.
The Army wants to move quickly to establish a program. Gill said the plan was to release a draft request for the proposal this month. Another industry day will be held in July and allows businesses to bring the capacity to demonstrate opportunities.
The service will then announce final requests for proposals in the fall or winter of 2025 and evaluate the proposals in 2026.
“I want to move on with this early in 2027,” Gill said.
The company estimates it is likely that it will run the program within two years, but Gill said it has directed the industry to try to cut that timeline in half.
“We can't make this fast enough,” he said.
Jen Judson is an award-winning journalist covering the land wars of defense news. She also works for Politico and Inside Defense. She holds a Masters in Journalism from Boston University and a Bachelor's degree from Kenyon University.
