How long to train a Army Pilot?
 

I've been round the circuit a few times now, and I was wondering how long it now takes to train an Army Pilot?
When I went through, it was 9 months from start to finish. :ok:

You mean they are actually trained!?:confused:

How long have you got?
watp,iktch

How long to train an Army Pilot to do what? :confused:


I would imagine that these days it now takes longer to train a soldier to become an Army Pilot than owe ver chutes 9 months.

The current system

Typically two years......not including Apache (chuck another several months on for that).


Aim at three years from tipping up at Shawbury to being on sqn, LCR on type....if they're lucky.

The website states that the Army recruit pilots from (among others)
Officers and soldiers from other arms and branches of the Service (Corporal and above)

Any idea what the upper age limit is?

30 years old but it is negotiable.


We are short of blokes (no FRI and cut flying pay may not suggest that though......) at the moment so if you have something to bargain with and are over that age, it's worth a try.

Being ex-RAF, I have been in a few inter-service arguments, but I support the AAC here. When DHFS was set up, the army pilots were taking longer time to get to the front line. Weeks and weeks longer was actually causing shortages at the front line. When the command structure tried to bin any fixed wing flying and tried to shorten the course (ideally withdraw from Shawbury), they were given a hard time because DHFS was 'the way ahead'. Don't get me wrong, the school does a great job, but individual service training units did a better job!! The problem????????? Of course........ MONEY. There is always a negative when you save cash.

Jay - but under the old system the AAC pilots were sent out to front-line only having ever flown at Wallop.

The AAC also had no independent validation of their quality since grading/instruction and examination was all in-house. if you wanted to chop someone and the powers that be needed a bum-on-a-seat then more often than not they passed.

Some of the first female AAC pilots only got to front-line because the system was so parochial.

Are there any figures for the 3 services re chop rate at DHFS?

DHFS chop rate 8%

AAC chop rate 50% on my course! :eek:

jaytee, I have to agree with crab@ here. DHFS has improved the Army product, as much as anything else by early exposure to the other services. (And vice versa before I cause offence)

I was in MoD when DHFS was being set up, and we had difficulty getting a "level playing field" for output standards as the AAC then claimed they could get a pilot CR in about an hour-and-a-half (I exaggerate greatly for effect). So my RN opposite number and I decided on the killer question - you will recall we were just getting into the Bosnia thing, and all 3 services were involved.

So the "equivalence" question was posed: How long after type training (OCU, 707 or whatever) would a new pilot be deemed competent to captain a singleton on a non-tactical ac changeover between UK and Split? RAF and Junglie answers were the same, about 6-9 months out of OCU at most ..... the AAC answer was a good deal longer ...... ;)

I also think you miss some of the point on the "losing the FW" plot of the AAC. IIRC the plot was to go straight to DHFS (or Wallop for that matter) and start flying training there. It wasn't the lack of flying that mattered, as much as the complete lack of any aviation groundschool.

Can you imagine a poor abo arriving at 660, not only never having flown, but with no met, no airmanship and no P of F instruction to use as a foundation......

But that was then and this is now - the system is good now (still not sure what DAAvn does and why it and Wallop are not part of JHC :ok:) and is being proved daily in the 'Stan with different rotary forces working superbly together - particularly the Wokka/Apache combo (not in any way to denigrate other types and theatres, where the same is true).

It's good to know the system is robust, when you've not only got mates flying out there, but nowadays the sons of mates too.......

Crab, yes they did. However remember the flying done at the time was on the AAC's Operational aircraft (Gazelle or Lynx) so no need to go elsewhere. RAF chaps went off to Benson or Odiham to do type conversions, RN went to VL or Portland unless you stayed on the Grey SK fleet then you remained at Culdrose.


So what independant checks did the other services have? If you were RN you were checked by RN standards at the end of your course likewise for the RAF. ALL instructore were checked by Tri service standards annually ISTR?

Any different for the other services I wonder? Also some of the female Pilots were very good.


The main reason for the swiftness of the AAC pilots course was that it was all done in one place, no fannying around on holdover waiting for other courses to finish. (9 months got you to frontline but the Command side of life was usually 2 yrs).


Shaun

Teet,

I'm not sure which Army product you think has been improved by DHFS!! The Army product that was achieved in the 9 months (no fannying about, so eloquently described) was a decent product. 60 hours Chippie and 140 hours Gazelle qualified you as a competent captain on the Gazelle.

Of course, Theatre Qualification then meant further training, and with close supervision/guidance/development you were in the right seat of a single pilot helicopter doing your job at about the one year point - still very closely supervised.

Crab - why would we want/require policing from any outsider? We always had a good smattering of well respected Crabs in our training system and at operational level - we didn't need them, we wanted them.

The Army training system evolved due to various factors, some were -

Economy - In striving to cut the chop rate, flying grading was introduced. Initially on the Chipmunk at MW. It was working just fine until the end of the Chippie's reasonable working life. Then instead of replacing our Chippie's at MW, we broke the system and started sending our pilots elsewhere.

CREST - Crew restructuring, someone had the brilliant idea that two pilots flying an aircraft certified as "single pilot," was better.

DHFS - just as we were getting the upper hand on the two pilot system, MOD came up with the brilliant idea of centralisation for helicopter training.


Of course, we all evolve, and so we should, some of the evolutionary stages are difficult but necessary, however, please don't be under the misapprehension that the 9 month Army Pilot needed improvement. He was capable and well trained. He also suited the needs of the Army and his career and capability progression was very straight forward. I doubt if that is still the case.

tam

Hihover
I agree. We did OK.
When I joined the Air Platoon of an Infantry Battalion in 1969 from MW as an infantry officer pilot, we were well trained and effective in the aircraft of the day and for the requirements of the day. I remember flying a Sioux solo on Salisbury Plain, tactically at tree-top level (if there had been any trees), directing artillery shoots, map reading, looking out, pulling up to spot fall of shot, locating it on the map, sending grid refs and corrections, using the radios with BATCO, with both hands and both feet busy on the controls and all the needles approximately in the green. All in a days work. How the hell did we do it?

I wasn't putting down DHFS, early exposure to other services is priceless, people make good contacts for the future. However, I stand by what I said (as a through and through RAF man), that the AAC got the product THEY WANTED, faster than the present system. Faster was the critical word a few years ago, they were very very short of pilots because the new system took longer. If the pilot couldn't captain an aircraft to Split, so what? They generally used a P2 system that worked for them. I think the RAF/RN system produced a slightly better product, but it took me a hell of a lot longer to get to the front line. My first 6 months on 33 Sqn are still a blur, I was so maxed out, we needed the extra training. Horses for courses, train what YOU need for the front line, as fast as possible.
PS. CFS checked the army regularly, other than wearing the wrong uniform, they were as good as us.....:ok:

Mmm.

I was a product of the old system and it worked fine.

I was also at MW when the new system started, at shop floor level we were expecting a fantastic product from Shawbury, it did'nt work out like that!

The ground school standard was far better than when I went through, some of the flying skills were better but the vast majority was the same or worse, RT in particular was appalling considering they had done 6 months or so at Barkston Heath and 6 months at Shawbury.

A lot of students who should have been chopped at Shawbury were sent on to MW, and were eventually chopped there.

Crab, you talk sh$te at times.

Too long!

Join as an Officer and you can expect your mates you went though RMAS with, to be leaving after they've done their thousand days.

Once the training's done though, you'll be doing one of the best jobs in the forces. Frustrating but worth it.

Serf, if I had a pound for every time I was told at MW that a Cpl pilot in a Gazelle could do all the same stuff just as well as a Flt Lt in a Puma/Seaking/Chinook, I would be a rich man. The problem was that all the guys who believed this had never seen what the RAF/RN do and assumed that bimbling around Salisbury plain was all that was needed.

The previous AAC system was efficient in that the flash to bang time for producing a driver, airframes was under a year - but, whilst the top end of the product was generally capable, the lower end could be pretty sh*te and it was very difficult to chop them when bums on seats were needed.

The AAC could have had a better product out of DHFS but insisted on keeping 670 and duplicating some of the DHFS syllabus when all that was actually needed was a few Gazelles to teach the tactical/observation skills. If students were not chopped at DHFS and sent to MW then it was often because the AAC insisted on it (again driven by bums on seats).