Economic Analysis of Restructuring Undergraduate Helicopter Flight Training

The U.S. Navy helicopter fleet is undergoing an unparalleled reduction in the number of different types of helicopters flown. All of the helicopters flown in the Navy are being reduced to two variants; the CH-6OS and the SH-6OR. A determination of the best way to train the pilots of these two new airframes is desired. Four different training alternatives are developed, specifying various rates of student throughput and various combinations of training aircraft. Each of these alternatives is then applied to two different training plans, which consider the consolidation of different levels of flight training. Aircraft cost data and student throughput requirements are determined through analysis of Navy Visibility and Management of Operating and Support Costs (VAMOSC) data and historical annual training requirements, respectively. Aircraft procurement and operating costs for each alternative are estimated. A ranking of some important benefits of the different alternatives are developed and a complete cost-benefit analysis is conducted. An Additive Weighting and Scaling model, along with a Hierarchical Multi-attribute model are used to evaluate the resulting alternatives. The results of this study indicate that under most circumstances the preferred alternative tends to be the one in which the Navy maintains the current training organization. Is. NUMBER OFNaval Postgraduate School Monterey CA is the author of 'Economic Analysis of Restructuring Undergraduate Helicopter Flight Training', published 1999 under ISBN 9781423545217 and ISBN 1423545214.