It's encouraging, if somewhat unsurprising, to see that
jayteeto and
oldbeefer seem to agree that "mirror-image" would work. But we are all - ahem - very experienced (alright then - we're old
) - what are the views of young(er) QHIs .... and/or recent students.
It always seemed to me that the 660 to 705 route was something of a sop to the other services, to give them their "own" sqns to "maintain ethos" and to claim that "all services had trained all pilots" .... yeah right as said younger generation might say.
Is there
really any benefit to the current system that isn't purely cosmetic and/or political??
Of course the system isn't perfect and probably isn't what you'd get starting with a blank sheet of paper - and a blank cheque! But we aren't in that position. OK, we might have (on several occasions!) taken the easy route, ie: Sioux & Whirlwind = Gazelle & Wessex = Squirrel & Griffin, and not made fundamental changes that could (with the benefit of hindsight) have improved the flying training for all 3 services....
..... and as for standardisation - isn't that what Standards Sqn (or whatever they call themselves) are for. The clue is in the name .....
And having visited Rucker, Pensacola and Kirtland, you just would not believe how
unstandard our cousins are across their services....