Army air crew training revamp to look at aircraft and simulators

After several fatal Army aircraft crashes and the arrival of a more complicated airspace in the future, the service is reviewing and updating how it trains its pilots and its warrant officers in particular.

Those changes will likely include a look at the types of helicopters soldiers are training with, simulator time and effectiveness, new rotor blades and tail rotor drive systems for the Apache and warrant officers sticking to their technical tasks for longer in the careers.

Fourteen soldiers have died in 10 Class A aviation mishaps since October 2023.

That’s more than double the mishap annual average over the past decade, Brig. Gen. Matthew Braman, Army headquarters aviation representative, said at an Association of the U.S. Army event on Wednesday.

A Class A mishap is any incident that results in the loss of life or the loss of equipment totaling more than $2.5 million, according to the Army.

On average, an estimated six aircraft crew members die each year in training or operations since 2011. Overall, even non-fatal mishaps contributed to a rate of 3.22 mishaps per 100,000 flight hours.

That high rate prompted a “safety stand up” in April across Army aviation, which included a focus on risk management and mitigation as the service continued normal aviation operations.

Recent Army aviation mishaps include:

• A February 12 Army National Guard Apache crash in Utah, injuring two soldiers.
• A February 23 Army National Guard Apache crash in Mississippi that killed two soldiers.
• A March 8 UH-72 Lakota crash at the U.S.-Mexico border that killed two Army National Guardsmen and a border patrol agent.
• A March 25 crash involving an pache helicopter at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Washington injuring two soldiers.
• A March 27 Apache crash at Fort Carson, Colorado that injured two soldiers.
• A May 7 Apache mishap that injured two soldiers at Fort Riley, Kansas.
• An August 7 Apache crash out of Fort Novosel that killed a civilian contractor instructor and injured the Army student pilot.

The tail rotor played a significant role in about half of the mishaps, Maj. Gen. Clair Gill, commander of the Army Aviation Center of Excellence, said.

The center is where the Army trains its air crews.

Brig. Gen. Cain Baker told Army Times Wednesday that as the service analyzed the recent crashes, it found the tail rotor problem specifically in Apache helicopters.

When the tail rotor can’t spin fast enough to provide the amount of thrust the aircraft needs, it can’t counter-balance the spin of the main rotor, causing the aircraft to turn, Baker said.

The tail rotor can experience those strains at higher altitudes and when the platform is carrying too much weight.

Baker said the Army has “plans in place to develop new tail rotor blades and a tail rotor drive system for the Apache.”

He did not share a timeline for those developments.

But training for Army aviators isn’t limited to changing out a few parts on an older model helicopter.

Pilots now face airborne threats they never saw during recent wars, an advanced sensing and detection mission and “launched effects” that commanders want onboard their aircraft.

Those add-on duties and capabilities complicate the tasks and duties of an air crew, especially a two-soldier Apache crew.

As the center builds new air crews and pilots, the Army continues to pursue the next steps through its future vertical lift program, including the Future Long-Range Assault Aircraft, which planners expect to increase the range and capabilities beyond the legacy UH-60 Black Hawk.

The aviation center is analyzing its entire course of instruction, the defense contracts that manage much of that training, the instructor aircraft and simulators as part of its review of aviation training, Gill said.

In 2013, the service replaced both the OH-58 Kiowa Warrior helicopter and its training aircraft, the TH-67 single-engine helicopter, with the dual-engine LUH-72A Lakota light utility helicopters, Defense News previously reported.

Though commanders didn’t have a specific date, officials said that changes at the center should begin in the next year or sooner.

For warrant officers returning to Fort Novosel as they advance in their careers, their training will change the most.

Until recently, even junior warrant officers were working in some brigades as aviation staff officers rather than remaining focused on their technical specialties.

“What we’re trying to do is not create the warrant officer to be a captain-like staff officer,” Gill said.

Instead, warrant officers will return to their roots. Most focus on a particular path for a time, such as crew instruction, aircraft maintenance or aircraft survivability.

Warrants will train those specialties and bring that expertise back to the operational Army, Gill said. Once they achieve the rank of chief warrant officer 5, they will then get training in how to work in a staff.