Oct 26 2026

TEACH THEM TO BE PILOTS FIRST Posted 1 hour ago ago by Admin

There is an interesting change taking place in military flight training, and I believe the helicopter industry should be paying attention. More and more, our military services are looking outside their traditional training institutions for the initial development of future aviators. Civilian flight schools, civilian instructors, commercially available aircraft, and FAA-approved training programs are becoming part of a process that historically existed almost entirely inside the military.

At first glance, that might sound like the military is outsourcing the training of military pilots. I do not believe that is what is happening at all. Helicopter Institute has been fortunate to participate in both Navy and Army programs exploring this concept, and we have been very careful about how we describe what we do. We do not train military pilots. We train basic pilot skills that provide future military aviators with a stronger foundation when they enter the portion of training that only the military can provide.

There is an important difference. A civilian flight instructor is not going to teach a student how to employ an Army helicopter tactically or accomplish a Navy mission. Nor should we. What we can teach is how to control a helicopter, understand aerodynamics, manage an aircraft, fly instruments, make sound decisions, and develop the basic habits expected of a professional pilot. Once that foundation exists, the military can take that student to Whiting Field or Fort Rucker and develop the skills required of a Naval or Army aviator.

The concept itself is not completely new. The Air Force has used civilian contractors for Initial Flight Screening/Training for approximately two decades. In 2006, Doss Aviation received a 10-year, $178 million contract to provide a turnkey flight training program. Civilian instructors, aircraft, maintenance, facilities, and much of the infrastructure were provided by the contractor. The Air Force retained military supervision and quality assurance, while the civilian organization handled much of the day-to-day flight training. The objective was not to create an Air Force pilot. It was to establish fundamental skills and send a better prepared student forward into military flight training.

The Navy has taken the concept considerably further with Contractor Operated Primary Training-Rotary, or COPT-R. The program began in Fort Worth in 2023 and has since evolved into a five-year contract for civilian provided primary helicopter training. According to the Navy, students participating in COPT-R were completing training an average of seven months earlier than their peers, at an estimated savings of approximately $230,000 per student. At the time those results were reported, the first 80 students had experienced zero attrition. Those are meaningful numbers for any flight training organization.

The Army has been exploring a similar direction. In 2025, the Army conducted an FAA Part 141 Initial Entry Rotary Wing demonstration using civilian flight training. Army students trained toward FAA Private Pilot and Instrument Rating-Helicopter qualifications before continuing into the military training environment. In August 2026, the Army announced the selection of M1 Support Services for Flight School Next, a program potentially worth $10 billion over as long as 26 years. The contractor-owned, contractor-operated concept is intended to support approximately 800 to 1,500 Army aviators annually, with increased proficiency, additional flight hours, greater capacity, and reduced cost among its objectives.

There is, however, another side to this approach. At the time of this writing, the Flight School Next award is subject to an active bid protest. That introduces a dynamic that generally does not exist when the military owns and operates its own training pipeline. Once flight training becomes a commercially competive, for-profit enterprise, companies have both the right and financial incentive to challenge an award. That protection is an important part of government contracting, but it can also introduce uncertainty into the training system while those challenges are resolved.

That raises a question we should not ignore. If a protest delays implementation or interrupts a transition, who ultimately absorbs the consequences? The contractor has a financial interest. The government has a procurement process to protect. The military has a training requirement to satisfy. Somewhere in the middle is a young student whose only objective is to become an aviator. If commercial competition begins affecting when or how that student receives training, we have to ask: Has that student become an unintended victim of the very system designed to make military flight training more efficient?

Cost is certainly part of the attraction, but I believe something else may be equally important. Civilian flight training can provide a clearly defined foundational standard within an established regulatory system. Under FAA Part 141, for example, the curriculum, instructors, facilities, aircraft, stage checks, and completion standards exist within an FAA-approved structure. The military customer determines what it needs from its future aviators, but the training provider also has regulatory responsibilities. Changes must remain within the framework under which the school and course were approved.

There is value in that consistency. Military aviation should absolutely control military training because nobody understands those missions better than the organizations responsible for accomplishing them. Yet, perhaps every element required to produce a military aviator does not need to begin as military training. Before someone learns tactics, formation flight, mission employment, low-level operations, or the unique requirements of a military aircraft, that individual still has to learn how to fly a helicopter.

Learning to hold altitude is not uniquely military. Neither is understanding translating tendency, retreating blade stall, weather, airspace, instrument procedures, aircraft performance, or good aeronautical decision making. Those are pilot skills, and the fundamentals do not change simply because of the uniform the student will eventually wear.

Perhaps we have spent too many years combining the creation of a pilot with the creation of a military aviator when they are actually two separate objectives. A civilian training organization does not need to replace a military flight school to provide value. Its job may simply be to deliver a student who is better prepared when military flight training begins.

None of this means civilian training is automatically better. It has to prove itself. Graduation rates, safety, cost, training time, and attrition all matter. Most importantly, performance at the next military training command matters. If these students require less remediation, progress more consistently, demonstrate stronger aircraft control skills, and complete advanced military training at higher rates, then we will have accomplished something far more important than finding a less expensive way to build flight hours.

We will have created a better starting point for the military to do what only the military can do.

Perhaps the future of military flight training does not have to begin by teaching someone to become a military aviator. There is plenty of time, expertise, and necessity for that training later. At the beginning, maybe our responsibility can be much simpler: 

Teach them to be pilots first. The military will teach them to be military aviators.

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