Original Message

My resignation letter when I quit working at Rucker (Novosel) in 2019 stated how the Army will see a rise in incidents and accidents when that current Lakota program generation makes PIC (I said 3-6 years from then). The program doesn't teach competency, everyone gets an A, and over-reliance on automated systems. It was HOW things were being taught; not WHAT was being taught. All fixable issues with a simple POI changes. When that generation of students also reaches the 1000hr mark the accident rates will be worse than prior 1000hr mark students because this generation is even more complacent and over-reliant on systems to fly the machine. The Aviate, Navigate, Communicate skills aren't being focused on enough. More effort spent on understanding upper modes and the G430 than head outside the cockpit, power management, and stick/rudder skills. Will be interesting to see if these pilots were also primarily CW2's. Mid-airs can/do happen whether due to tactical flying loss of situational awareness or focus on systems inside loss of situational awareness. In this case, rank wouldn't really matter. I'll just be extra sad if it's young guys as the contributing factors about how hey were trained only stacks things against them. Rucker buddies have confirmed they've taken one step forward in some aspects of fixing the program there but 2 steps back in others. Really sad as we trained highly competent guys there for years then it was an obvious drop when they re-wrote the program when they got the Lakota.