Love the way everyone jumps straight to the conclusion that the training in question is for the benefit of the aircrew.
The quote was ... "45% of the army's running cost bill [is] taken up by helicopters. We have to reduce those costs to a minimum, and [the Ministry of Defence (MoD) is] looking at surrogate training"
And I'll bet you all a pint that when the Army is contemplating whose training needs are paramount, it will be the requirements of our Land Forces, not the operators in flying suits, that will hold the day - and quite rightly so - because that is where the biggest potential pay-off is.
I've never understood why we use high value assets to conduct low level collective training, and the old chestnut "the pilots need it for currency" was just an excuse for not bothering to properly calculate, and account for, the true cost of operating our assets in the way we did. This initiative will consign that attitude to the dustbin. For far too long the "train as you fight" mentality has been a blocker to embracing the all the potential benefits that a well designed and properly resourced synthetic and blended training environment might promise.
The thing that's changed is now Defence is broke.