Sir - You report that a private consortium has won the UK Ministry of Defence contract to run ab initio helicopter-flying training for the next 15 years (Flight International, 9-15 October, P14).
In the "appointments" section (P62) there is a half-page recruitment notice placed by the same consortium for a variety of qualified helicopter-instructor positions. The application of simple logic gives rise to a potentially difficult situation.
If the Royal Navy, Army Air Corps and Royal Air Force do not train helicopter aircrew, why do they need qualified instructors? If not it follows that the armed service will not train and employ qualified instructors. If, then, the pool of service-trained instructors becomes dry, from where then do civilian contractors recruit their instructors?
There appear to be two options. Firstly, recruit military-qualified instructors, who are non-UK nationals - a novel concept, and one which appears to have national-security implications. Secondly, contractors can train their own instructors from retiring line-helicopter aircrew. Has this been built into the costing of this particular privatisation?
Will we still be considering the options in, say, 15 years' time?
JULIAN PAGE
Coventry, Warwickshire, UK
Source: Flight International
