Obstacles to Meeting Army National Guard Aviator Training Requirements

Abstract

Army National Guard (ARNG) aviators must meet the same aviation training requirements as active Army aviators. During the past 10 years, the training requirements have increased significantly; yet, the amount of time allocated for ARNG aviators to meet the requirements has remained relatively constant. To determine if the aviators need additional allocated training time, a questionnaire survey was conducted. One objective of the survey was to identify the types of obstacles that interfere with the aviators' ability to meet the training requirements. The results indicate that five factors pose major problems to meeting the aviators' continuation training requirements. The factors are an Insufficient Number of Flight Hours, Unavailability of Instructor Pilots, Unavailability of Training Support Areas, Unavailability of Support Equipment, and an Insufficient Amount of Personal Time. The identification of time related obstacles supports the aviators' perceptions that additional training time is needed; however, the identification of obstacles that are not time related suggests that remedial actions, in addition to an increase in training time, can be taken.