1. When the Airman Program was eliminated, the Coast Guard lost the ability to provide hands-on training to personnel entering aviation ratings. Aviation Technical Training Center (ATTC) does not have the resources required to properly prepare members for work in the field. Aviation Class A school graduates are reporting to their next units without the basic skills needed to be an asset to an aviation engineering department. The Coast Guard needs an enlisted aviation indoctrination program that will give new aviation petty officers essential basic skills.
2. Coast Guard aviation is a demanding field that requires well trained and experienced members in order to carry out its many missions. A valuable part of the training process is exposing members to hands-on experience in the handling, servicing, and maintaining of Coast Guard aircraft. The Airman Program served as indoctrination to the essential skills needed by an aviation petty officer. Airmen gained real-world experience in the operations of a Coast Guard air station through participation in many of the daily tasks involved in maintaining and operating aircraft.
The tasks that an airman learned in the Airman Program included: towing aircraft, fueling aircraft, collecting fuel samples, jacking aircraft and performing fire guard duties. Although the Airman Program provided much needed training, it was not without its flaws. One major problem was a lack of standardization among the various air stations that were training members awaiting aviation Class A schools. As a result, reference (a) announced that the Airman Program curriculum was integrated into Class A school for
Avionics Electrical Technician (AET), Aviation Maintenance Technician (AMT), and Aviation Survival Technician (AST) ratings in an effort to eliminate training burden on units, standardize instruction, and save administrative effort and travel cost. 3. The objective of the Airman Program, according to reference (b), was to prepare service members bound for aviation Class A schools in the basic practices of aircraft maintenance. The program was largely effective but there was little direction on how units implemented the program.
Some units assigned airmen to the various shops to shadow rated petty officers as they conducted daily operations. Other units created more formal airman training programs with classroom instruction and Airman Coordinators who were responsible for monitoring airman progress. While there were benefits to both methods of instruction, the system produced members with widely varying levels of knowledge and experience. In response to this problem, AMT and AET Class A schools were extended by 6 weeks and the Airman Program curriculum was incorporated into the Class A school curricula, creating a single source of instruction.
Unfortunately, ATTC has no working aircraft on which new aviation personnel can learn the basics of handling, servicing, and maintenance. Reference (C), the very curriculum that was supposed to be incorporated into Class A School curriculum, states that airmen are training to become third class petty officers and therefore they should be given every opportunity to perform the same tasks that a third class petty officer would and that they should also be given every opportunity to become comfortable working on and around aircraft.
Reference (c) also gives the example that little, if any, time is spent at ATTC moving aircraft and that the only time an airman will participate in aircraft towing operations is during his/ her time at an air station. In conclusion, the Coast Guard transferred to ATTC a curriculum that, within it, acknowledges that it cannot be completed at ATTC. The standardized instruction promised in reference (a) is realized in a product that is now consistently unprepared for the field.
A program that will bridge the gap between theoretical learning at ATTC and realworld work at an operational unit is needed. 4. The Coast Guard Aviation Logistics Center (ALC) is the heart of Coast Guard aviation and is connected to nearly everything that takes place at an air station. ALC is the authority on aircraft maintenance, aircraft publications, the supply system, and is home to the Asset Logistics Management Information System (ALMIS). Experience in each of these areas is essential to perform the daily business of a Coast Guard air station.
ALC should be the location where new petty officers build a foundation of aviation knowledge and skills on which to launch their careers. Under the proposed program, Class A school graduates would spend one month working on the end of the line on either fixed-wing or rotary-wing aircraft, based on the member’s assignment. Tasks which cannot be completed at ATTC, including, but not limited to, the General Aviation section of reference (C), will be performed during the program under the guidance of experienced technicians.
Because ALC is not an operational unit, the schedule is more predictable than that of a typical air station and is more conducive to training. The creation of an indoctrination program at ALC provides benefits both to ALC, in the form of increased manpower, and to the new petty officers, in the form of hands-on training in a nonoperational environment. 5. The proposed aviation indoctrination program would address the problems with the legacy Airman Program as well as the current issues faced by Class A school instruction.
Hosting indoctrination at ALC reduces the training burden on units by providing hands-on instruction in basic aircraft handling, servicing, and maintenance prior to members reporting to their assigned unit. The use of a single location for indoctrination will ensure standardization of instruction as was the intent when integrating the curriculum into Class A schools. The proposed plan also saves travel costs when compared to the legacy Airman Program because ALC is collocated with ATTC in Elizabeth City, resulting in no additional travel.
The experience gained from indoctrination will allow these new petty officers to contribute to their assigned unit by performing basic tasks immediately upon arrival with little disruption to a busy operational schedule. transfer a 6. Critics may argue that the addition of an indoctrination program for enlisted aviation members would be prohibitively expensive and would slow the delivery of petty officers to already understaffed units. Among the most common challenges facing many change proposals is the availability of funding. One of the reasons for integrating the Airman Program into Class A schools was to reduce costs.
Included in the integration was the elimination of travel costs associated with transferring members to an air station for the Airman Program, travel to and from Class A school, and the possibility of another cafter graduation. Instituting an indoctrination program at ALC preserves these cost savings because there is no additional travel involved. Class A schools were extended by 6 weeks to allow for the added Airman Program curriculum although AMT school has since been shortened to 21 weeks. The indoctrination program would eliminate the need to include much of this instruction at ATTC.
Class A school lengths could therefore be reduced to 20 weeks and the remaining time allocated to the indoctrination program with little change in the time needed to deliver petty officers to the field or the costs associated with housing personnel. Opponents of an aviation indoctrination program might also claim that Class A school staff has already given students opportunities to work with aircraft at Air Station Elizabeth City. However, the limited access to aircraft provided to students over only a few days is not sufficient to give the students an adequate grasp of basic aviation principles.
7. The stage of Kotter’s Eight-Stage Process which presents the biggest challenge to this proposal is Empowering Broad Based Action. Changing an existing process is always difficult, especially one which is relatively new, even when the proposed change would not require significant funding or personnel increases. A sense of urgency to better prepare Class A school graduates for the field already exists within the aviation community. Because this issue directly affects every aviation unit, it would not be difficult to create a guiding coalition of Chiefs who will lead the effort and communicate the vision.
8. Coast Guard aviation lost a valuable tool in the development of junior petty officers when the Airman Program was incorporated into Class A Schools. Airmen were once able to learn alongside rated petty officers while filling a training allowance billet. The current system requires new petty officers to complete this same learning process while filling a petty officer billet, reducing the capabilities of aviation engineering departments. The training burden on units was not eliminated but merely postponed until Class A school graduates report to their first air station.
Hands-on training is required to provide the skills and experience necessary to produce productive members of an aviation engineering department. Air stations still have to train members on the basics of aircraft maintenance just as they did under the legacy Airman Program. A legitimate enlisted aviation indoctrination program located at ALC, the heart of Coast Guard aviation, would provide the consistent, hands-on experience working on and around aircraft that our new aviation petty officers need to provide an immediate impact to the fleet.