WASHINGTON: The Army Aviation Branch is in the process of overhauling its entire training program, said Command Sgt. Maj. Greg M. Chambers.
Soldiers of the 10th Combat Aviation Brigade work on a Black Hawk helicopter at Camp Mihail Kogalniceanu, Romania, Sept. 23, 2017. (Photo Credit: U.S. Army photo by David Vergun)
Chambers, who is the command sergeant major of the U.S. Army Aviation Center of Excellence and Fort Rucker, said the center is now working on development of a new maintenance training program for enlisted maintenance personnel.
The center is also examining the advanced individual training programs of instruction to determine if it is teaching relevant tasks, he said, providing a hypothetical: “If a hydraulic pump on a helicopter never breaks, why are we teaching that task?”
Besides that, the center is mining information from all the combat aviation brigades to determine what are the most frequent and critical aviation maintenance actions.
Once that analysis is complete, those tasks will be incorporated into programs of instruction at both AIT and follow-on professional military education courses, he said, speaking earlier this month at an Association of the United States Army-sponsored forum on aviation.
Besides an institutional focus on improved aviation training, commands must also do their part to improve Soldier proficiency in aviation maintenance, Chambers said.
