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Aircraft maintenance administration and maintenance control. I wound seeing most of the paperwork generated by things like crashes (Airframes Bulltetins/Changes, Dynamic Component Bulletins/Changes, Powerplant Bulletins/Changes, and associated VIDS/MAFs).

The H-46 was getting too damn dangerous to stuff troops into starting 1989--we lost about one bird every three months to the same problem (main rotor blade separating from the main rotor hub in flight), for a 18 months. That's half a squadron right there.

In 'Nam, the CH-46 had this habit of falling apart in midair because of gross NATOPS violations by pilots.

BTW, the CH-53E Super Stallion had a FAR higher crash rate than the Osprey during its T&E and IOC phases. At one point, there was talk of just killing the entire program, because the Super Stud was "just too dangerous."

The CH-53E was (and is) an aircraft singularly unforgiving of sloppy maintenance practices and violations of its flight envelope (When the angle of bank hits 90 degrees, the lift kind of slides off of the rotor disc). I was a plank owner in HMH-466, and that squadron literally saved the CH-53E program. We had SNCOs who actually made sure that the work was done all the way instead of "close enough for gubmint work." We had pilots who flew the bird TO and not BEYOND its flight envelope.

Bottom line: the CO of VMMT-204 who ordered the paperwork fudged ought to be making big rocks into very small rocks for the next 20 years. We ought to NOT let KC-130 pilots transition into rotary-wing aircraft. We ought to expect that if the FCS computer doesn't reset, the pilots ought to LAND THE BLOODY THING as the NATOPS manual says.

Thanks. I guess you weren't a rated pilot then.

There's some Evil Kneival-type daredevil in all military pilots so you can always tell them, but you can't tell them much. No matter what the rules are or what the flight manual says, they will push the limits to "find out" what they really are. If they didn't have that characteristic, they'd be smart enough to stay on the ground.

I agree on the cross training. You really learn your first serious aircraft's characteristics well because of the pucker factor. After you get comfortable with it, the neural patterns take over in emergencies, and they're based on THAT particular aircraft. If you then transition to a new aircraft with different flight characteristics, you're liable to resort to inappropriate "remembered" solutions to emergencies. Besides military pilots don't retain combat level skills for that long anyway. If they're good, they get promoted out of the cockpit, and if they're not, they get transferred or separated. If those things don't get them, they'll start failing flight physicals as they age.

It doesn't make economic sense either. It costs $X to get proficient in a C-130. It costs $Y to get proficient in another AC. Great, we've spend $X + $Y on a pilot who's dull to and set in his ways in the new AC, and won't be much good in either. Most of the cross trained pilots I gave standardization training to in Vietnam were "good" and "adequate" but they weren't the "best" pilots in the unit.

Bona fide "Test Pilots" are a different breed altogether. Their skill and air sense transcends any aircraft. They can fly anything, and they're rare. They're guys like Chuch Yeager. I don't know what the odds really are, but I'd guess that fewer than 1 in a 1,000 excellent military pilots has the innate talent to be a test pilot worthy of the genre.