AVIATOR IN TRAINING

"Even a monkey can be taught to fly given enough peanuts - but the army has a very limited supply of resources to expend in training the young men and women who desire to fly its machines"

Almost from its very beginning, the military significance of the airplane was widely recognised. Armies around the world took to the new machine with gusto.

In Australia the first official embracing of an army aviation capability came in 1912 with the approval of a submission by the then CGS for the formation of a flying corps.

Five aircraft were purchased for the army on March 1, 1914 with the first flight in a Bristol Boxkite being made by Lt Eric Harrison at Point Cook. Unfortunately, on the same day, Lt Henry Petre went into the history books as the first Australian Army aviator to damage his plane in a flying accident when he crashed in a Deperdussin monoplane.

Just seven months later the world was at war and Australia did its bit as much in the skies as on the land or sea. During the course of the war she supplied the personnel for five operational squadrons and four training squadrons in England as well as other aviators scattered across the globe from New Guinea to Africa, India to Europe. At least 65 of these army aviators distinguished themselves as flying aces, shooting down at least five enemy aircraft each in various campaigns.

In the aftermath of WW1 the Australian Army aviators were all but disbanded as an entity and most of their borrowed equipment returned to England. On March 31, 1921 the Australian Air Force was officially raised and bestowed the title Royal about six months later.

This didn't, however, kill off the army's aspirations for its own flying corps. Shortly after WW2 (in which army personnel flew as observers in RAAF aircraft), it was decided that artillery officers should learn to fly light aircraft to fulfil an air observation-post role.

Training of this new generation of army aviators began in 1951 with army instructors (who had been trained in the UK) imparting their knowledge under the wing of the RAAF's No 3 (Fighter Reconnaissance) Squadron at RAAF Fairbairn. This squadron was replaced two years later by 16 Air Op Flight with little or no break in training for the army.

This relationship with the RAAF proved less than adequate, however, and by 1960 ownership of a generic capability for the army was raised in the form of 16 Army Light Aircraft Squadron at Amberley equipped with fixed- and rotary-winged aircraft.

From these humble beginnings grew today's Australian Army Aviation Corps boasting six different airframe types across two regiments with an expansion into the technologically-advanced realm of attack/reconnaissance helicopters on the near horizon.

Today's army pilot training is a challenging and rewarding endeavor. Those who complete the 18 months of intensive, stressful training profess to surmounting great personal and professional hurdles on a career path that is ultimately worth the considerable effort.

After choosing a career in army aviation, candidates can enter the stream by one of several ways. Special Service Officers sign a limited contract and complete a six-week basic officer course, while others with a long-term career in mind, complete normal officer training through ADFA and/or RMC before taking to the air. There are also those who choose, for one reason or another, to change careers after being in another branch of the army for a few years.

"Sometimes people can get rapped up in the euphoria or the romance of being able to fly airplanes but when they get to Tamworth they find it is a very difficult and demanding task. It's not all about being up in the wild blue yonder, looping the loop"

Flight training begins for army-pilot aspirants at the ADF Basic Flying Training School, Tamworth, NSW.

One thought drummed into students (and the casual observer) from the outset is that "even a monkey can be taught to fly given enough peanuts but the army has a very limited supply of resources to expend in training the young men and women who desire to fly its machines". So, from day one the pressure to perform is on and indeed it is at this early stage that the majority of those destined to fall by the wayside will be culled.

The first phase of this six-month block sees students complete an intensive round of classroom lectures and exams in everything from the theory of flight to the rules that govern their use of common airspace.

And then, finally, they take that first tentative leap into Australian skies.

Flying fixed-wing New Zealand-built CT-4 Airtrainers the students must meet certain milestones in their development in an (almost) inflexible training regime.

Chief instructor Maj Rob Kingma says not everybody can handle the pressure, not everybody has the skill or the enthusiasm to go through what is a very demanding process.

"This is probably the hardest course anyone will ever do in the army. The amount of work these people have to do is huge and virtually every ride they take in an airplane they are being assessed against various performance criteria," he says. "They have to perform all the time and that pressure is something that some people can't always handle."

For army and navy pilots (since the RAAF no longer flies helicopters) the next six months is spent at the ADF Helo School in the ACT where basic helicopter handling and tactics are taught -- converting the new pilots to the vagaries of rotary-winged flight and employing the aircraft in the tactical roles to which its capabilities are best suited.

Recent Canberra graduate Lt Keith Wylie says students who come to the school from Tamworth already know how to fly, else they wouldn't make it this far.

"Here the question is whether you can learn fast enough -- and not just the hands-on stuff," he says. "There's a lot of numbers in flying a helicopter -- entry angles, max torque, temperatures etc -- and the learning curve is the thing that kills the most. There is a lot to learn and the pressure is almost constant. But at the end of the day what we need to learn is to fly these machines by instinct. What I mean is, you don't have time to think about what you are physically doing when you are mission focused. So the machine must be second nature just as a car is second nature to most drivers. You get an emergency and your reaction must be instant, automatic and correct. Your life depends on it -- and the lives of your passengers."

With an attitude towards his charges that is reflected across the learning spectrum ADF Helo School 2IC Maj Blue Phillips says that while the stress and pressure on students to perform is high, every effort is made to getting them through the course.

"We firmly believe there are two ways of running a school like this," he says. "One is to have a whole bunch of aircraft, instructors and resources, just stand back and say, there's your target -- good luck. But what we do here is put them under our wing -- pardon the pun -- and say there's our end state, how are we going to get there together? The whole ethos of the school is to help each student through any problems they may have. But obviously there is a bottom line to all that."

Graduation day in Canberra is marked by the presentation of the pilot's wings, effectively certifying the students as provisional or probationary pilots.

"The information flow was like taking a fire hose, ramming it
down your throat and turning the tap on"

Then its on to the School of Army Aviation in Oakey, Queensland for another six months of force-fed learning and its associated pressures.

Here, army's newest helicopter pilots are taught the necessary skills to handle the particular helicopter type they are destined to operate for the foreseeable future.

Here, too, their training paths take a deviation. Black Hawk pilots are in for, perhaps, the roughest ride, with the bigger, more complex aircraft taking more effort to master. On the up side, however, they do get to spend six weeks in Seattle flying a simulator.

Black Hawk trainee Lt Tony Dennis says the training he had been through was the most demanding thing he had ever done, including raising his kids. "The information flow was like taking a fire hose, ramming it down your throat and turning the tap on," he says. "There is a lot to take in and it is a constant flow of information. It's full-on and you basically have to put your life on hold for 18 months and that can be very hard, especially for the married ones."

Capt Stephen Wood, QFI (qualified flying instructor) for Black Hawk, says all the instructors at the school know what the students are going through because they went through the same process once.

"We do have a certain empathy for them but at the same time we have to maintain the standards required by the army," he says.

"It's a long road but, I tell you what, the light's nice and bright at the end of the tunnel. You can begin to see it about half way through here and towards the end it becomes clear it's no longer a train."

Following graduation from Oakey, the pilots are now Cat D (category D) pilots and are immediately employable as aircraft co-pilots. In fact, Australia's involvement in East Timor saw more than a few recent graduates cut their teeth on foreign soil.

Learning and assessment does not finish on graduation day, however. Each new pilot (as with any recent trainee) continues to improve on the job and aspires to each new level of professional competency -- but without the added burden of the constant pressure.