Ralph, the track history of the Puma shows only one thing - it bites and bites hard, even to experienced guys working hard under pressure. Dilute the experience on the front line and you have accidents in the making. The shame on the RAF is that despite several BoI recommendations, the Pumas still haven't been fitted with anticipators (planned soon allegedly).
The intimate knowledge of what the tankies, infantry and arty are up to is nice to have but not essential since few SH wander round the battlefield looking for business. Obs and recce and AH work is different, I guess that's why it is given to the Army.
As for tactical scenarios, NI was a real one and while we flew either at 50' or above 2000', many AAC were quite content to bimble around at 200' -500' wondering why they were the ones getting shot at.
I instructed for 5 years at Shawbury and 7 years at MW - sufficient I believe to discern the comparable levels of ability in those days. As I said the AAC have raised their game since then as a result of getting AH.
I can't speak for SH but we (22 Sqn Sarboys) chopped one pilot in the last couple of years for not achieving Operational Captaincy. If you want to see what we demand of our first tourists on SAR then come and have a look, the learning curve is steep and without good quality input, many would fail.
Russel - it is not a rank thing per se but the fact remains that to join the AAC as a pilot you can score lower than the RN or RAF students at Cranwell and that generally (yes there will be exceptions) the educational standard of the Officers (RN and RAF) will be higher than the junior ranks of the AAC. This is why the AAC tripled their throughput of Officers through Sandhurst to provide Apache with pilots.