Creamie QHIs

[chinook240]

Are creamie QHIs a step in the right direction?

https://www.royalnavy.mod.uk/news-and-latest-activity/news/2024/february/23/20240223-fleet-air-arms-jack-makes-history-as-new-helicopter-pilot-instructor?fbclid=IwAR0Q35wP999MUd3aU2bvX3XWqH-HJx0InnFv_qODuesFLCf92Nf9km_hrfE_aem_AZbKaAo5dN9XsvE3yLhjHwJ tq71jqviJ18eBi3xOapMhIU2KKlQ0XJLUQWPnMhZIocY

[Big Pistons Forever]

Seems like he was unusually qualified before he started his basic helicopter course. Being a good instructor is a lot more than just having lots of hours wiggling the cyclic and collective.

[Herod]

I'm sure we had fixed-wing creamies on the JP back in the sixties, and pretty sure on rotary as well. Anybody who can confirm this?

[aw ditor]

Had Creamy QFIs' in Basic and all Advanced Streams for years and years and......................... .

[SAR Bloke]

Had Creamy QFIs' in Basic and all Advanced Streams for years and years and......................... .

But this thread is about rotary Creamies. I’m not aware of any in my time.

[Fortissimo]

There has long been a feedback mechanism to ensure the output from the training machine (regardless of how long it is currently taking!) is of the standard that the front line requires. Part of that loop is the Creamy system (or First Assignment IP as our US friends would have it). If you can impart enough knowledge and skill to the point where that person can be trained to instruct successfully, then you have an immediate validation of the standard of pilot being produced from that stage of training, and a validation of the internal assessment process.

As to whether it's a step in the right direction, it is surprising it didn't happen years ago. If it is OK for BFT and FJ AFT, why not rotary?

[ShyTorque]

There were definitely Creamie JP QFIs (I flew with one during my BFTS course).

However, I don’t ever recall there being Creamie QHIs. I was posted to CFSH very much against my own preference as a second tourist and very much felt the new boy. Forty years on, still do… ;)

[Thud_and_Blunder]

Contemporary of Shy's, and the same recollections - have not heard of any creamie Q-H-ones since first becoming aware of the job in the mid-70s. Closest I ever saw was in the late 80s when it seemed that you could only be a Chinook OCU QHI if you'd never served on Chinooks before... but they'd all flown some kind of rotary prior to arriving on 240.

I wish Lt Cooke well. If he managed as much stick-time as some crewmen I knew, he had probably already covered much of the work prior to BRNC and basic flying training. I'm not going to mention Dark Menace again, just in case an easily-offended ex-truckie is reading this thread :E. For aw ditor - my Dad was a creamie Sgt pilot instructor in 1942; his Senior Instructor told him the re-roling whilst still in Canada would probably save his life as most of his contemporaries went to Bomber Command, and he was right.

[trim it out]

Good on him.

And good on the system for recognising talent and doing something about it.

[Mogwi]

The main bitch about creamie QFIs was that they had little, or no Service experience. It strikes me that this young man has ample - and prob a few good dits to go with it.

Good on him!

Mog

[212man]

He’s the first Qualified Helicopter Instructor (known through the air world simply as QHI) to complete the Central Flying School course – having only finished his own training as a pilot just months earlier.

​​​​​​​Seems to answer the comments about whether it’s happened in the past…..,

[chinook240]

So, out of interest, why haven’t we done it before, there have been other rotary role crossovers, nav’s and crewmen? The precedent has now been set,

[Lordflasheart]

...
" ... why haven’t we done it before ?"

Perhaps no one wanted to. I wouldn't have.

LFH

[teeteringhead]

Certainly never happened before. The reason always stated was that helicopter "basic" training always included some operational inputs, which demanded "front line" experience.

Came close once in the 1980s with an ex-Red Arrow pilot who had changed to helicopters (and is probably the best pilot I ever flew with) but in the end - after much discussion - it didn't go ahead.

[charliegolf]

Came close once in the 1980s with an ex-Red Arrow pilot who had changed to helicopters (and is probably the best pilot I ever flew with) but in the end - after much discussion - it didn't go ahead.

I was on 2 Sqn with him, me a DE 22 year old crewman wannabe. With next to zero knowledge, aviation wisdom or experience, even I could see he was a gifted pilot. But he was also free with his time and his experience, shared without hubris. He was a lovely bloke. I sensed he unnerved the staff! RIP TC.

CG

[212man]

Certainly never happened before. The reason always stated was that helicopter "basic" training always included some operational inputs, which demanded "front line" experience.

Came close once in the 1980s with an ex-Red Arrow pilot who had changed to helicopters (and is probably the best pilot I ever flew with) but in the end - after much discussion - it didn't go ahead.
Out of interest, why the switch? Had he ejected and changed medical categories?

Or, had he just ‘seen the light’! 😁

[charliegolf]

No ejection. When I asked him, he said, "My body started letting me down."

CG

[Herod]

I'm not sure about "operational inputs" and "front-line experience", as teeteringhead mentions. My rotary basic was over a half-century ago :eek:, and I'm sure things have changed out of all recognition, but we were just taught to fly the aeroplane. Yes, we carried crewmen, went into clearings, did mountain training at Valley, where we also did winching work over the water. However, a long way from "front-line". So I guess we never had "creamies" on rotary; just at BFTS.

[megan]

Wot's a "creamie"?

[Bob Viking]

Wot's a "creamie"?

It’s what the Americans would know as a FAIP. They are ‘creamed off’ (so to speak) during training to stay on as an instructor.

BV

https://youtu.be/lG2kNL7CC-I?si=BIyV0mvTJU1L4Db1