This thread is awesome!
This thread is epic, awesome discussion being had!
Army and choppers: great idea, but in reality its my opinion it has been done poorly for too long.
Army needs rotary lift, and CAS/Armed recce without a doubt. But those capabilities are intensive to raise/train/sustain....and are increasingly complex and expensive today compared to a huey or a kiowa a couple of decades ago. Yeah, it would be perfect if the army could keep doing it alone, but it just might be getting too hard, if it were looked at in the cold hard light of day.
And CASA.....yeah ADF aviators who fly day to day as a military pilot, need to do english proficiency tests for example........because once you are out of a zoom bag you somehow forget how to speak properly. What a joke.