“One of the things that we’ve noticed over the last couple years is our accident trends are moving in the wrong direction. When Army senior leaders go out and talk to experienced aviators, they say, ‘What’s going on out here?’ They say, ‘We have a very talented population that’s coming out. They’re inexperienced. They’re very good at systems operations. They’re not very good at flying fundamentals,’’’ Gill said. “So some of that we attribute back to the fact that we have a very advanced trainer.”

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In the current draft CSO, the Army is requesting that the aircraft for Flight School Next meet a slew of requirements, but the three most prominent are that the aircraft have a turbine single-engine, counterclockwise rotating rotor system and Instrument Flight Rules (IFR) certification. The certification, awarded by the Federal Aviation Administration, takes around 12 months to complete; it requires certain equipment to be installed for various situations such as low visibility environments, equipment for anti-icing or de-icing, appropriate warning systems, enforcements for dual generators or back up batteries and more.