Military Helicopter Training

[cap]

Sticky ------ why would all of the latter have to be precluded from civilian instructors being involved? It's not " rocket science" and if something called for it to be taught according to some military syllabus, then what would prevent the IP's from doing so? Am I missing something here? The only difference between the instructing in all facets of the training at Ft Rucker is that the instructors are civilian......other than that, it's all exactly the same as it was with the military IP's before.

[widgeon]

Just a clarification .

Bombardier military side was aquired by L-3 communications late in 1983 , now known as L-3 Miltary Aviation Services.

[Hover-Pig]

Close Widgeon, acquired in 2003 vice 1983 and only the maintenance side not the training side which runs NFTC and Portage. From a local pony's mouth.

[Sticky]

Sticky ------ why would all of the latter have to be precluded from civilian instructors being involved? It's not " rocket science" and if something called for it to be taught according to some military syllabus, then what would prevent the IP's from doing so? Am I missing something here? The only difference between the instructing in all facets of the training at Ft Rucker is that the instructors are civilian......other than that, it's all exactly the same as it was with the military IP's before.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

No slight intended cap, I didn't preclude it...it was stated by HP in the opening of this thread that civilian instructors would do ab initio and the advanced training would be done by military pilots. None of the helicopter training currently conducted in Portage, except for perhaps formation work and NVGs (if that becomes part of the syllabus), requires unique military skills in order to teach the course so civilians would be well suited to do all of the training. The QFI course is quite demanding and would adequately prepare anyone unfamiliar with military training methods to teach in Portage. And I'm fairly certain civilians would allow dual-rating of instructors so they could teach both phases of the course...

 

The only disadvantage to having 100% civilian instructors is all the fuel that would be spilled on the ramp from their morning DIs :shock: ...just kidding

[cap]

Sticky ------no slight taken bud and if you could say your last sentence to me in person with a straight face, then I'd know that you have a "dry" sense of humour and I'd then KNOW that we'd be getting along famously. See......I'm like some mutant from another planet. I'm Canadian with American roots and call this my homeland, but have served in the American military and flown commercially in both countries. As a result, I have a tendency to take what I consider to be the best from all those spheres and try to simplfy things. So you can tell me that I'm from the Planet of the Apes then and I won't be offended see.....because I'm a mutant.

[Hover-Pig]

It is accepted as a holy grail in the Air Force that the military will always retain "Wings" training. The new syllabus has us teaching around 25 hours in the Jet Ranger to take the student from the Harvard II to a helicopter, introduce basic IFR handling and basic navigation.

 

The students will then switch to the twin where advanced IFR and navigation are introduced. They will become NVG capable and learn crew concept throughout.

 

I believe the Jet Ranger phase could very effectively be taught by civilian instructors and the military could retain "Wings" training with the second phase. We have had tremendous success with our civilian instructors on the Slingsby and in our simulators in Moose Jaw. All groundschool and simulator instruction will be done by civilian instructors in Portage also under the new contract.

 

I think this is the future. We can keep the G.I. Joe stuff while the non combat related common flight skills can be taught by the contractor. We would probably improve the experience level on the Jet Ranger. I won't mention what the average number of total flight hours is for our QFIs.

[widgeon]

thanks for the correction not even the right decade LOL .

[donnybrook]

Hey HP,

 

Has there been any word on the entry program for civilian pilots (HELICOP program)? It seems to have dropped out of sight... Maybe the ab initio portion could be done by reservists to maintain the "standard"?

[Hover-Pig]

Donny you are right if the Regular Force believed it and we could get it funded but sadly this is not the case. Economically and pratically, the Air Res could easily do this for us with numerous bases throughout the country letting us capitalize from the broad spectrum of experience.