Air Force chopper pilot training splits from Army.

• Author: Tiron, Roxana
• Position: Flight Training - Flight School XXI

After more than three decades of learning the ropes alongside Army pilots at the flight school in Fort Rucker, Ala., the Air Force has chosen its own training program for novice helicopter aviators.

The pivotal reason for the change is the Air Force's incompatibility's with the Army's new training concept called Flight School XXI, which stress increased flying hours in combat helicopters, such as the Black Hawk, the CH-47 Chinook, the Apache and the OH-58 Kiowa Warrior.

In the old schoolhouse model, both the Army and the Air Force used the Vietnam-era UH-1 Huey to teach students combat skills. Beginners would learn flight instrumentation on the Bell TH-67 Creek, and then switch to either the Huey, or the OH-58A/C Kiowa (solely Army) to touch on combat maneuvers. After that, pilots would move to advanced courses in combat helicopters.

But the Army, as part of Flight School XXI, decided to scrap the Huey and the OH-58A/C from its training, because they proved too old, were plagued with maintenance issues and were not representative of the Army's newer combat aircraft.

The Air Force, meanwhile, finds the Hueys suitable for its initial pilot training, said Lt. Col. Robert Abernathy, commander of the Air Force's 23rd Flying Training Squadron. This unit is the Air Force's only specialized undergraduate pilot training organization for helicopters.

When the Army decided to scrap its Huey fleet, the 23rd Flying Training Squadron acquired the helicopters from the Army, he told National Defense.

While still a tenant of Fort Rucker, the Air Force has developed its own independent training syllabus, separate from the Army's new flight school model, he said.

Air Force helicopter students start off with six months of fixed-wing aircraft training at either Air Force or Navy bases, he said. Once they get to Fort Rucker, they already have six months of flying under their belt, Abernathy said. Therefore, the Army, under the previous arrangement, considered them in a graduate program because of their previous experience, he said.

"The students that the Army receives here do not have any flight experience, and the program is tailored to new people," Abernathy said in an interview. "The Air Force needs to tailor a program that looks at, and includes, the progress that students have made."

Flight School XXI is an "outstanding program," he said, which focuses considerable attention on moving to tactical aircraft. "We, too, would like to have a tactical mission...