busdriver, I was referring to the NAVY IFS,
not the Air Force IFS, which programs are NOT conducted in the same manner.
Just having a program may or may not produce the results you seek. (See the T-3 deal at USAFA of a few years ago as an example).
How you implement such a program makes a significant difference. The Air Force IFT (which was linked to a PPL as a performance objective) seems to have answered the mail on UPT failures when it was in place. Won't comment on the USAF IFS as it stands now.
I see in this thread quite a bit of hand waving about 'send 'em to civvy school' and so on, but if you don't structure the program right, you aren't furthering the development of your budding military aviator. Providing that there are performance standards and the ability to fail, one should be able to weed out the unmotivated early on, and the unable by the time it is over.
Is government spending screwy?
Is water wet?
EDIT:
Early in the Navy program's life (circa 2006)
Navy Post Graduate School in coordination with the Naval Air Training Command looked at IFS as the Navy conducted it and found it to require significant improvement.
ROI wise, it wasn't cost effective. Is it cost effective now?
I'll see what I can find out.
How does this relate to the thread?
At 2500 dollars per flight hour, the UH-72 is an expensive primary trainer. The ROI numbers for the T-34C were just under 400 dollars per hour, for the T-37 Tweet about 1100 dollars per hour, and for the T-6 were (last I recall) about six hundred dollars per flight hour. (Will try to get some better numbers on UPT/T-6 costs, that may be off by a bit).
First hit:
$2,235 per flight hour for the T-6??? Not sure if that is calculated the same as for the Tweet ...
I'd say there is ample room for a program that will give an ROI for introductory helo training, depending upon how the Army structures the program. I'd go to the USAF for advice on this one, as their approach seems to me to be more effective than how the Navy has proceeded. (It galls me to say that, as a Navy man, but results matter).