I am sure that the military training methods are the best; I don't think anyone has denied that. I would just contend that the nature of their training might not NECESSARILY prepare pilots for the commercial, customer-focussed world.
However, unless I have misunderstood the economics of the (at least UK) defence budget, I would still maintain that the armed services are not releasing as many qualified pilots as they did 20-odd years ago.
All helicopter operators (in fact, all companies) exist to make a profit (otherwise they are called charities). There is no other reason for a business to exist. If, due to increased costs because of flight safety, customers go elsewhere, then that operator will lose business, and pilots and engineers will lose jobs.
Air ambulance, police, BBC etc will go back to their previous methods instead of using helicopters. All these have different methods of funding as well.
I'm afraid, Crab, that my hackles really do rise at the implication that all accountants are cost-driven; most of us have the commercial awareness to realise that there are certain aspects of a business that are harder to value and quantify; one of these being quality (in all respects).
OK, back to funding these proposals. Old-fashioned apprenticeships with bonding at the end. Needs government support and unfortunately, in the UK at least, this is unlikely to be a vote winner. Since our current government has already taken steps to make aviation more elitist; it ain't gonna happen in the short term. In order to get a prospective government on your side, they would have to be persuaded by the public that aviation is a GOOD thing and with current environmentalist lobbies, this would be difficult.
Whilst I think there is some merit in Steve76's proposals, it doesn't legislate for professional attitude and whilst most helicopter accidents are down to pilot error, is this pilot error due to lack of training or lack of "the right stuff".
Cheers
Whirlygig