Seldomfitforpurpose,
For perspective, I am a 2K hour SH QHI with temperate and obviously desert op experience and amphib, jungle and artic non-op experience. I am not trumpet blowing meerly saying that I am not as experienced as some here and more so than others.
The point I am putting across is that SH 'flying' is no more complicated than getting a helicopter to a location with some guys or kit in the back and dropping it of, then returning home. Indeed applying some tactical principles to this process that makes it different from civvy flying.
The thing I find hard to grasp in military flying (conversion) training is why an experienced civvy pilot can convert from one type to another in a couple of weeks with a few hours of ground school, some sim and a handful of aircraft hours. Granted that it would take a few more hours on a mil type to learn subtle differences in tactics and DAS etc, but it certainely shouldn't be taking 10+ months and about 80 aircraft hours to convert people.
Instead of doing it using the civvy model, we have to say no no no you are a SK pilot.......you need to learn a how to navigate a merlin......or you are a lynx pilot, you have to learn how to do a CAD in a chinook. Ultimately it is all the same rubbish in a different frame and the fleet disagreements and diferences in opinion of how things should be done just wastes millions of taxpayer $ which we apparantely don't have at the moment.
I am sure you will read this and again retort a 'this guy dosen't know his arse from his elbow' comment. But have a think about it, and really the whole SH game is a piece of piss made complicated by people making up fancy procedures and methods so they can banter other fleets about how SH1t they are.
I reckon that if I really had to, I could teach an experienced guy in a couple of hours how to start my aircraft type, and then could pretty much just let them have a go and figure it out. This is certainely the way it used to be done before we had billions to blow on luxuries like flying training.
BL