Serf, if I had a pound for every time I was told at MW that a Cpl pilot in a Gazelle could do all the same stuff just as well as a Flt Lt in a Puma/Seaking/Chinook, I would be a rich man. The problem was that all the guys who believed this had never seen what the RAF/RN do and assumed that bimbling around Salisbury plain was all that was needed.
The previous AAC system was efficient in that the flash to bang time for producing a driver, airframes was under a year - but, whilst the top end of the product was generally capable, the lower end could be pretty !!!!!e and it was very difficult to chop them when bums on seats were needed.
The AAC could have had a better product out of DHFS but insisted on keeping 670 and duplicating some of the DHFS syllabus when all that was actually needed was a few Gazelles to teach the tactical/observation skills. If students were not chopped at DHFS and sent to MW then it was often because the AAC insisted on it (again driven by bums on seats).