It does make sense to widen the selection pool to the spotty youth community, but the rank criteria (whatever NCO level it was) was previously predicated on pilot applicants having acquired a reasonable knowledge of how the Army works. AAC was always required to operate in All-Arms environment, so a knowledge of wider operations than those acquired from your original branch made sense. Does this mean DAAvn think that knowledge base is less critical, or that the (junior and less experienced) pilots will always be supervised by a grown up?
Having flown with newly qualified pilots from Corporal to Major, amazingly enough, rank was never an indicator of ability!