Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates was at Fort Rucker, Alabama yesterday to inspect the training of Army aviation pilots and to determine if it were possible to speed up the recruitment, training, and “production” of new Army helicopter pilots. In Secretary of Defense Gates’ proposed new budget, there was an allotment of $500 million for the speeding up of the training process for Army aviators. Gates said “How do we quickly accelerate the throughput of trained pilots and crews? That’s the simple question and that’s where most of the $500 million is for.”
Fort Rucker currently pumps out 1,200 new aviators and crewmen a year, and the Army says that’s about 300 short of their annual goal of 1,500. Some have expressed confidence that the money given to speeding up the process at Fort Rucker will close the pilot deficiency gap in about two years. Gates kept up his trend of speaking directly with troops on the ground, and learned that more instruction officers are needed (among other things).
While this $500 million lump sum will help speed up the process of training new, effective, skilled Army pilots and crewmen for the helicopters being produced, there needs to be a better campaign in the recruiting offices across America to get people interested in joining the Army to fly or man a mini gun rather than making it seem that everyone that enlists in the Army has to shoulder a 40 lb. pack and trudge all day through mud and rain.
