Quote:
Originally Posted by FlewNavy
Not much hard data to support conclusions but because we are an up/out organization many of us suspect it’s the 2nd/3rd order consequence of under funding an entire generation of pilots. During sequestration we had pilots flying hours at the bare minimum of safety. Those pilots eventually moved on to be IPs and then field grade Majors/LCDRs. Though all “qualified” their body of work and experience is not equal to their predecessors. It’s not uncommon for Commanding Officers to only have 1500-2000 hours of flight time now but when I started out - 300 hours per year was a good target....now it’s 100-150 averaged over 15 years.
Around the time I got out of the Army it was embarrassing how little the average pilot flew. Army regulations require someone to fly every 60 days or else they need to have a checkride to re-establish currency. As an Instructor pilot, I spent ALL of 2016 giving proficiency checks instead of doing mission oriented training. Our line pilots were simply mismanaged, under appreciated, and constantly forced to attend non-aviation related training. Example, we have to cancel Mr. So-and-so's training flight tonight because he has to attend an Anti-trafficking brief at 0600 tomorrow. There is a time and a place for these things but the military MUST realize that our flight crews are not normal individuals and need to be treated as such. An Army pilot should be practicing his trade of flying aircraft in combat, not ruck marching and assaulting buildings. We have other people that do that. It's embarrassing to have more accidents in a non deployed environment than during a deployment. This happens because we use our dwell time to get the meaningless BS out of the way instead of flying to proficiency. During an actual deployment, the funding is in place to allow for alot of flying and training.
It should be noted, however, that the things asked of military aircrews is much more dangerous than civilian IFR flying. It should be expected to see more accidents while doing precarious things in an aircraft. Recently though we have seen far more military accidents than normal. I am curious to see the cause of this latest C130 crash. God bless them all.