By Gidge Dady TEAM Public Affairs, V-22
An advanced flight training program for student naval aviators who want to become tiltrotor pilots will be available in the new fiscal year. During fiscal year 2001, the first group of Marine student naval aviators who select to fly the MV-22 out of primary flight training will enter the Joint Advanced Tiltrotor Training program with a graduation date in July 2001.

This group will consist of four Marines who will begin their training at the Naval Air Station Corpus Christi, Texas, where they will first fly the fixed-wing portion of their advanced syllabus in the TC-12B.

Upon completion, they will then transition to NAS Whiting Field, to begin rotary wing training in the TH-57B/C. A second group of four Marine student naval aviators also will enter this advanced training in fiscal year 2001 but will reverse the order of training starting with rotary wing at NAS Whiting Field and then moving to NAS Corpus Christi to finish up with fixed wing training. The students will then get their "wings" at the location where they complete this training.

Efforts to develop this program began in March 1999 because the U.S. Marine Corps Aviation department recognized the need for a specific training track for future tiltrotor pilots, according to Col Barry Ford, commanding officer, Marine Air Training Squadron Group 22, Corpus Christi. This intensive program will give the new aviator training beyond what the current rotary wing and multi-engine training pipelines now offer in order to meet the V-22's unique training requirements.

"This hybrid of fixed wing and rotary wing training will provide the Marine Corps' training squadron, VMMT-204, a winged aviator capable of flying in both the higher altitude arena traditional of fixed wing operations, and the low altitude/slow speed arena traditional of rotary wing operations," said Lt. Col Max Morton, joint aviation training officer, Chief of Naval Training, who authored the syllabus for this program. "Until we acquire a tiltrotor trainer at the Naval Training Command, this tailored program will provide the highest level of training available."

When a tiltrotor trainer becomes part of this program, Morton said a tailored curriculum using the trainer would replace the current TC-12B/TH-57 training syllabus. The specific tiltrotor syllabus would provide logical, progressive tiltrotor training, basic tiltrotor skills in less time that would be experience directly transferred to the V-22 and, fleet pilots would be able to get their combat qualifications earlier.

The curriculum is broken into three parts, academic instruction, simulator instruction, and actual flying time. Upon graduation, student aviators will have earned over 340 hours of specific tiltrotor training.

Newly graduated aviators from the Joint Advanced Tiltrotor Flight Training program will then be able to join VMMT-204, the V-22 training squadron located at Marine Corps Air Station New River, NC, where their flight instruction in the MV-22 will begin. By the time they are certified V-22 pilots, they will have completed another 60 hours in V-22 full flight and motion based simulators successfully performing all mission profiles, and the required 40 hours of air training in the Osprey.

Ford said this new level of training is significant because it offers student naval aviators a high degree of cross training in both rotorcraft and fixed wing, and a sound academic education in the unique flight characteristics and flight regime of tiltrotor aircraft.

"The Corps has much at stake with this program and it is only fitting that the Naval Training Command provide the most highly trained aviators possible for this critical component of Marine Air. The US Marine Corps' concept of Operational Maneuver from the Sea relies heavily on the ability of our Fleet Marine Forces to go directly to the areas that will shape and control the battlefield," Morton said. "The MV-22, with its unique ability to go fast, high, and deep will take us there. We must make the "leap" from helicopter assault to true operational vertical assault if we are to take advantage of the performance enhancements provided by the MV-22."