Maybe a few thousand hours of mustering/Ag/Shooting/long-lining instead of ILS approaches would be better training for a pilot who is pushing the envelope of an aircrafts' capabilities in VFR conditions? Just a thought, but it seems from the outside looking in that the root cause of most ADF accidents would get the average bush pilot sacked. As an example, a few years ago a Blackhawk hit a tree near Amberely while conducting low-level training & the vision on the news clearly showed that it was the only tree in a 10 acre paddock!
It's a shame for the mil pilots sake, but I don't think any pilot can get good at his/her profession while flying approx.100hrs/year as one ppruner from Nowra quoted last year. As a tax payer in both Canada & Australia I'd be happy to fork out a bit more to give them more time in the hot seat. Maybe an exchange program with commercial operators could help? Maybe, like any other operator in the world, have minimum experience levels which must be met before they are let loose in a multimillion dollar helicopter which belongs to the tax payer? Although mil pilots will no doubt be offended by my post, I don't mean to be patronising, just looking for ideas. After all, lots of "bush pilots" have flown into the ground in the dark, but I don't think the mil boys have for a while!!