To the editor,

I was sitting here the other day reading a couple of the letters published in Fourays. I was wondering why people bother to write under pseudonyms? Is it the Australian way? But when I sat down to write this letter, I thought of all of the times in the Army I've seen someone with a good idea shot down like the Red Barron, all because he/she had the temerity to offer up their ideas.

What is it the makes people so critical of others in our Corps? So in the interests of self-preservation and continuing my enjoyment of the good life, I'm going to call myself Rupert and paint myself yellow.

Chicken Hawk and the Gunner might have a few good points but I think that they're missing a few of the bigger issues. I'm what the Army sees as an outsider and so my opinion probably doesn't count for much in the Australian Army. Doesn't bother me really - I'm enjoying my life in the sun. But I have been around a bit and presumably, that is why the Army employed me.

Sometimes, to be objective, you need to look at things from a different perspective. So in the interests of stirring the pot and making for some intelligent and stout debate, here is my two cents worth.

Corporate Knowledge:

While I'm sure there are exceptions to the rule, it would seem to me there is a distinct lack of flying corporate knowledge in the Corps. Why is this? Primarily it is because it takes around 8-10 years to get to the stage whereby you have it. Look around your ready-room now and tell me how many of your pilots have been in a flying position for that long. I'll bet that almost none of them have. There may be a variety of reasons for this but perhaps we push experience 'onward and upward' too soon to build a truly solid aviation knowledge base. See my points about using what you've got below.


Flying Supervision:

I fear that one of the reasons why there are insufficient levels of experience in the squadrons is the structure of the Corps. By the time pilots gain sufficient experience to be truly useful in guiding, training and developing junior pilots, they are Majors in charge of a unit with far too many extraneous demands on their time for them to truly carry out that role.

So the role of developing junior pilots falls to the troop commanders. Who are our troop commanders? They are graduates of RMC with, at best, 4 years of postgraduate flying training on a squadron. If you work on a (generous) average of between 200 & 300 hours per year, they are all in the dangerous zone of 800 - 1200 hours where they are competent but perhaps more worryingly, confident; Overly confident in some instances. 

Have a look back through the squadron's incident logs and count up the number of incidents that have happened to pilots in this zone. This is not a slight on them individually. It is just that statistics show that at this level of experience, in the military world, you might need a guiding hand every now and then. Who provides that guiding hand? Not the Boss, he's too busy. In fact, the troop commanders provide the guidance themselves. They are the flying supervisors on the squadron. Whilst RMC might prepare you to lead a bunch of soldiers in the field, the flying world is different and our flying supervisors need to be far more experienced.

Corps Structure

So what is wrong with the structure? Dare I say it but I think the Navies and the Air Forces around the world seem to have the structure right with a Lieutenant Colonel or equivalent to lead the squadron. One Major to lead the actual flying, one Major to run training and development on the flying side, and one Major to look after tactics and weapon systems. By all means develop your junior officers by giving them 'troop command' but make it an administrative role. Effectively, troop commanders are the peers of every other Captain and Lieutenant in the squadron. You run into trouble when you appoint a GSO pilot as a troop commander to supervise (from a flying perspective) an SSO who has far more flying experience than his 'boss'. What happens then is the less experienced 'supervisor' tries to show influence and authority by flying above his capability. And he is free to do it because he can self authorise. By making Majors the main flying supervisors, you remove the problem.

I can hear the complaints now "but all of my class mates will from other corps will get ahead of me". Here's the reality chaps - the aviation world really is different to the rest of the army. No amount of banning the wearing of leather jackets, patches and teaching us think like an infantry company commander is going to change the reality. If this complaint is genuine, make each sub-unit a full unit and make the regiment commander a full Colonel.  Command in aviation is different anyway. As I've already pointed out, troop commanders effectively lead a bunch of their peers. Show me another corps that does that.

Use what you've got

There are a lot of chaps from other countries and services sitting around on their collective backsides, getting paid a lot of money to be co-pilots. Most of them are very, very experienced helicopter pilots, most have been in training and development postings and most have real world, real battle experience. A few even have command experience gained whilst on operations - experience that flying around Timor and Bougainville just can't match. Use what you have available! As Forrest Gump once said, "that's all I have to say about that".

Oh, one more thing. If you're going to pay a small fortune to employ experienced pilots in a line role or as a QFI, sending them off to do courses like an Introductory Staff Course does not seem to be a wise way to harvest a return on your investment.

Exchange of Knowledge

Send a few more pilots away to the UK, the USA, Germany and NZ to cross pollinate. Not just a select two or three of the golden children but lots. Learn from others.

Make it Fun

This might be the most controversial thing I say in this little spout, but there is little fun in flying for the Australian Army for those new pilots arriving in the squadrons. Flying helicopters should be the most enjoyable thing you do with your pants on but somehow the big vacuum cleaner has sucked it all out. Not quite sure how to change this one as it is a cultural thing. But I'm sure there'll be quite a few suggestions if you ask around.

Make it fun and people will stay to fly another day. Make it an unpleasant experience and people will leave and fly for someone where life is more pleasant.

Even those illustrious Duntroon chaps.

Au revoir.

Rupert