Special Operations Aviation Training Company, 160th Spec. Ops. Avn. Regiment, at Fort Campbell, Ky. 

 The subjects taught at the SOATC include officer and enlisted qualification and staff aircrew training courses.
     Courses for crews of special operations forces-unique helicopters are also part of the SOATC curriculum. These courses include training for UH-60 Black Hawk and CH-47 Chinook mechanics and crew chiefs, and several nine-week courses on maintaining and repairing integrated avionics, electrical and automated flight control systems in the special operations-unique airframes.

Welcome to the 160th
     Prior to the 1990s, individual companies in the 160th trained new personnel. How long the training took depended upon whether instructor pilots or other unit personnel were available, Harrison said.
     With the establishment of enlisted and officer "Green Platoon" training, new-arrival training and pilot-aircraft transitions orientations were standardized.
     The current enlisted "Green Platoon" or enlisted qualification course is a grueling five-week training program.
     During week one, solders learn the history and mission of the 160th, receive briefings on security and other subjects, and take an assessment physical fitness test. Two of five "ruck marches" highlight the first week. The road marches are four and five miles, respectively.
     The second week begins with "Dark Monday." Students get their first introduction to the SOATC obstacle course and a newly refurbished mud-pit.
     However, land navigation is the focus of the training week, with 18 hours of classroom instruction followed by a challenging two-day practical exercise. There is also a six-mile march.
     Students in week three move up to an eight-mile march. In class, they learn close-quarters countermeasures. Training includes three days of hands-on defensive and offensive knife techniques, counter strikes and pressure-point control tactics.
     By the end of week four, all students are graduates of the Basic Combat Lifesaver Course. They also complete water-survival training and a 10-mile march.
     The final week is spent on the range. All students qualify or familiarize, depending on assignment, with the M-9 pistol and M-4 and M-16A2 rifles. After they pass the record Army Physical Fitness Test, soldiers receive their maroon berets and unit crests at a graduation ceremony.
     Graduates destined for support or staff jobs then go directly to their assigned units within the regiment. The rest, primarily helicopter crew chiefs or maintenance personnel, move on to the more technical SOATC courses.

Officer Orientation
     The Officer Green Platoon is structured to meet the needs of new pilots. As a result, training may last from three to 24 weeks, depending on the officer's final assignment and aircraft rating.
     Phase 1 of the training is the survival, escape, resistance and evasion course at the U.S. Army John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School at Fort Bragg, N.C.
     Phase 2 covers combat skills. In addition to many of the same skills taught in the enlisted program, it includes training at the Navy's aircrew sea-survival facility in Florida.
     The final week of the phase is a transition to the "Flying Academics" of Phase 3, and includes introductions to the local flying area, aircrew coordination, operation briefings and night-vision goggle navigation.
     Phase 3 is an intensive three weeks of NVG navigation training and is conducted exclusively in one of the company's MH-6C "Little Bird" helicopters.
     In Phase 4 the aviators train in their respective aircraft, and training lasts an additional nine to 14 weeks. During this time each aviator becomes qualified in an aircraft and goes through mission and environmental training.
     Over-water, desert and mountain training take place in such places as Virginia, Florida, New Mexico and Colorado.
     For pilots transitioning to the CH-47E and MH-60K aircraft, the first 30 hours of flight time are done in a simulator.
     "The use of simulation allows us to freeze the action and teach technique as well as emphasize procedural training," said Steve Janick, MH-47E combat mission simulation instructor and Lockheed Martin contract employee.
     New pilots get 70 hours of simulator time during their stay at SOATC.
     An example of this is the technique of aerial refueling, said CWO 3 Larry Grice, deputy OIC of the CMS facility.
     "Before, it would take a dozen or so tries to make the first 'plug.' Now, after practicing in the simulator, new pilots are making the first plug on the first or second try on their first day of actual aerial-refueling training," Grice said.
     Similar results are evident with other technological tools, available to students and pilots in the regiment. These tools include the desktop trainer and TOPSCENE, a mission-planning software package.
     The desktop trainer is an interactive software program that supplements the MH-47E and MH-60K manuals. It's used to familiarize transitioning pilots to the "glass cockpits" of these two SOF airframes.
     There are two versions of TOPSCENE. The high-end TOPSCENE 4000 is at the regiment's simulator facility. The more portable TOPSCENE 400 is used to plan real-world missions in the battalions.
     However, SOATC does not base its training solely on these new tools of the trade. Every graduate of SOATC's Green Platoon must be able to plan, brief and fly a routine SOF mission totally "unplugged."
     Once they've proved they have mastered these skills through various evaluation flights, aviators are considered to be "basic mission qualified."
     As the new BMQ pilots move on to operational units within the 160th, SOATC starts another group through the training cycle.
     SOATC remains an important factor in the careers of 160th SOAR aviators as the unit improves and extends its training support.