MY 2 CENTS
employment, low-level operations, or the unique requirements of a military aircraft, that individual still has to learn how to fly a helicopter. Learning to hold altitude is not uniquely military. Neither is understanding translating tendency,
retreating blade stall,
weather, airspace, instrument procedures, aircraft performance, or good aeronautical decision making. Those are pilot skills, and the fundamentals do not change simply because of the uniform the student will eventually wear.
Perhaps we have spent too many years combining the creation of a pilot with the creation of a military aviator when they are actually two separate objectives. A civilian training organization does not need to replace a military flight school to provide value. Its job may simply be to deliver a student who is better prepared when military flight training begins.
None of this means civilian training is automatically better. It has to prove itself. Graduation rates, safety, cost, training time, and attrition all matter. Most importantly, performance at the next military training command matters. If these students require less remediation, progress more consistently, demonstrate stronger aircraft control skills, and complete advanced military training at higher rates, then we will have accomplished something far more important than finding a less expensive way to build flight hours.
We will have created a better starting point for the military to do what only the military can do.
Perhaps the future of military flight training does not have to begin by teaching someone to become a military aviator. There is plenty of time, expertise, and necessity for that training later. At the beginning, maybe our responsibility can be much simpler:
Teach them to be pilots first. The military will teach them to be military aviators.
Randy Rowles has been an FAA pilot examiner for 20 years for all helicopter certificates and ratings. He holds an FAA Gold Seal Flight Instructor Certificate, NAFI Master Flight Instructor designation, and was the 2013 recipient of the HAI Flight Instructor of the Year Award. Rowles is currently the owner of the Helicopter Institute. He can be reached at
randyrowlesdpe@gmail.com
rotorpro.com
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