Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Matthew Dorram: Long story short, John was in within a few minutes. He's doing full touchdown auto rotations in a Bell 505 and did a great job. And at the end of that, you know, I said, you know, it's so easy in a Bell 505 to do autos. Even a general can do it.
[00:00:17] Intro: Welcome to Hangar X Studios, where former fighter pilot and host John Ramstead takes us on a journey across aerospace as it enters an historic period of innovation and transformation.
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All right. Hey, welcome to the Hangar X podcast. You know, this is where innovators and leaders and entrepreneurs and investors are coming first to get the information that we need as there is a revolution happening in aerospace right now. There are so many advancements that are taking place. And I was recently reading an article about. And actually I was at Verticon and I saw the new Bell 505 helicopter and an entire initiative about how to reshape the training that's going on with our helicopter pilots, especially in the Army. And so we had some great conversations with Bell, and I said, would you guys please come on the podcast and let's talk about what's happening in. And I really believe it's getting back to the basics, but also equipping an entire generation of pilots on how to be mission capable, but also do it at a level of safety and excellence that, you know what. That we've needed for a while. So with that, gentlemen, welcome to the podcast.
[00:01:44] John E. Novalis: Yeah, thanks, John.
[00:01:45] Matthew Dorram: Thank you.
[00:01:46] John Ramstead: And so let me do a quick introduction here, everybody. We have Matthew Dorram, Chief Warrant Officer, retired. You're the lead at the Bell flight school. Next 29 years, Army Aviation, 7,000 flight hours. I think I have seven hours in a helicopter. So you're almost there. You can teach me a lot.
Former command Chief Warrant Officer, Colorado Army National Guard, expert in high altitude training. You developed the HATS program for Colorado H A T S. Two combat deployments. You rated in six army airframes. You also led international pilot training. Former 747 pilot and instructor. You have a master's in organizational performance from csu. And this is pretty cool. As an outdoorman, Matt, you completed the Colorado Big nine with bow and arrow, so. I know. Well, I guess I can't say it on air, but you are a bad mama jama. How's that?
[00:02:47] Matthew Dorram: Okay, well, the animals are afraid of me. Let's put it that way.
[00:02:52] John E. Novalis: I don't know how I follow that, John?
[00:02:54] John Ramstead: Okay, well, let's try John Novalis, Brigadier General, which is, you know, man, that is rare air. You're the strategic director at Bell for flight school next. A military academy graduate, Apache pilot, 500 combat hours, former executive assistant to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. That's pretty impressive.
You directed NATO joint operations in Poland. You were a key leader in Iraq and Afghanistan, like so. You've been there, done that. You know, both of you gentlemen know what good army training is, but you also know when you train somebody, what they're going to be dealing with in real life out in the field. You led sustainment for the 101st senior leadership roles at DoD. You consulted at Booz Allen, and now this is great. And this is what we're going to be having conversations about. You're leading strategy for military training and advanced flight systems at Bell Helicopters, and you have a master's degree in human Resources and National Security Strategy. So, you know, I thought I was fairly accomplished till I met you guys. So I'm just going to leave my background in the background. How's that?
You know, I want to start out with a question. I've been doing a lot of reading about flight school. Next. And your approach to flight training. And we just talked even before we hit record about getting back to basics. But, Matt, you know, I read that the army is now teaching pilots to fail and to fail on purpose. And that seems to me like a kind of a radical shift. And I'd love for you to unpack. What do you, what, what is meant by intentional failure? How is it central to the army, and what is the, what is the goal of that?
[00:04:35] Matthew Dorram: Well, so when you ask, when you say training to fail, I assume you're talking about training for emergency pro maneuver training, is that right?
[00:04:44] John Ramstead: That was, that is exactly what I'm thinking about.
[00:04:47] Matthew Dorram: Yeah. And so really, I think what, what you're talking about is what the army really wants to go back to doing, more so than what they do today. It's not that they don't do it today, but, you know, when, when John and I went through initial pilot training, every day was a training, a training sortie where you spent very little time on how to do normal operations. What we really cut our teeth on and learned was how to handle the aircraft in every situation that it could go wrong. You know, something fails, engine fails, hydraulics fail, the tail rotor gets stuck in a fixed pitch setting. And so we learned to fly normal operations by way of training through emergency procedures.
And that, I think is what really helps create good, solid, foundational pilot skills is when you can handle the aircraft in those adverse situations, it makes you a good pilot in the normal situation. I would equate it to. This might be a terrible analogy, but if anybody's a certified scuba diver, nobody really teaches you how to be a scuba diver. What they teach you how to do is deal with clearing your mask and taking on and getting your, your air kicked out of your mouth and losing a tank and losing all the bad things that could happen to you underwater and by way of.
And how to not die doing that.
By learning all of those, you effectively become a good scuba diver in that case. So maybe a good, maybe a bad analogy, but it's what I think about when I think about how to train fundamental skills in brand new pilots.
[00:06:32] John E. Novalis: Yeah. I think, John, just to caveat that I think the sophisticated aircraft that are being designed and are being flown worldwide causes us to train pilots to be outcome system pilots. Right. You gotta know how to bring up this pad and you gotta be able to punch the buttons. Right. And add this thing and update your data and. And I think sometimes we forgot that what made 20 years of combat pilots successful in combat in Afghanistan and Iraq wasn't being able to do the systems. It was when something went bad, you knew how to fly the aircraft and you were confident enough to get it safely to the ground. I think that's the real key to going back to failing to be good. Right. I mean, to show people what's the worst that can happen. And if you survive it, you go, okay, I got this.
[00:07:28] John Ramstead: So, yeah. So instead of a focus on proficiency of systems and operational excellence, which is very important, that's one pillar.
I have to have equal or greater proficiency on just flying this aircraft because I need to assume in combat something bad is going to happen and it could happen at any second. Is that fair?
[00:07:46] John E. Novalis: Absolutely.
[00:07:47] Matthew Dorram: And not only just in combat, but even in training operations, you know, combat training operations out there in the units, you know, we're putting aviators in high stress, high workload environments, and if they don't have those foundational pilot skills, that's where things are going wrong for the Army a little bit today.
[00:08:10] John Ramstead: Yeah. So, John, maybe from your perspective, maybe from either a strategic or doctrinal background, how is the army currently training aviators? What's the philosophy and mindset?
[00:08:21] John E. Novalis: I think you probably have to start just maybe a wee back ago. A couple years ago, you know, the army made a decision based off of a whole bunch of really good reasons at that time to switch kind of how flight school was being executed. And it all started with the aircraft, Right. So you update an aircraft and you bring a twin engine aircraft in and it has pilot assisted controls. And you know, over time what you start seeing is that the pilots that you're, you're producing at the end are strictly systems pilots. You know, some, probably the last 10, 15 years, there's not that many pilots who have done an auto rotation.
[00:09:05] John Ramstead: Is that because the systems. Pilot, pilot, they started relying on the automation and really focused on the systems because I didn't have to work so hard to do the stick and rudder skills.
[00:09:15] John E. Novalis: Yeah. And then when things go bad, they forget the basics of the aircraft. And so the army and they've been pretty open about this, you know, they've seen an increase in safety incidences and a lot of it can be, you know, a direct line can be, you know, directly back to the pilot and his, you know, his capabilities or her capabilities.
How much confidence they have. Have they ever done this maneuver before? And frankly, they're taking the, you know, the hard landings. Right. And damaging aircraft and killing people. And the army recognizes that as an issue and they want to fix it now. And it gets back to that, back to the basics that Matt was talking about, you know, showing them how to fail in a training environment that's controlled so that when it happens in real life, they're survivable.
[00:10:09] Matthew Dorram: And it's not that the army lacks attracting the best and the brightest to become army aviators. There's some wonderfully smart and brilliant young people coming up to be army aviators, but the current training construct, it just does not afford them the opportunity to do a lot of the maneuvers that we got to do back in the day. As you mentioned, auto rotations to the ground. And it's not that the army is necessarily having an autorotation problem that's hurting air crews, but pilots being able to handle the aircraft in all of those situations is what really builds those good foundational skills so that when they are challenged, whether in combat or in a training operation, they can appropriately handle the aircraft.
[00:10:56] John E. Novalis: Yeah. And John, if I could just kind of caveat off of that question real quick. You know, I think the army, for the army for sure, and I think the other services also, this is kind of a reflection point for them. Right. We're not in, you know, full out combat operations worldwide, though we are out there, you know, but it's not Iraq and Afghanistan where we got brigades of aviation, you know, doing the Missions. So there's a reflection point here where the army can take a breath and say, okay, what are our issues with flight school? And, you know, I kind of. Maybe there's three. You know, there's cost of the current aircraft. It's unsustainable in today's budget.
So we know that. Right. And need a little bit more efficiency to. To the current fleet that's down there that's costing millions and millions of dollars. Okay. I think you have what we've already discussed, a fundamental training issue that you got to take care of and get back to the basics. And then I think on the third part is, you know, I was telling Matt, we were kind of laughing before, but, you know, the same kind of curriculum that I went through, I don't even want to say how many years ago, but let's just say, you know, over 30, that curriculum was the same one that Matt went through. And it's darn near what the young lieutenants and warrant officers are doing today.
So the army is going to use this reflection point to drive down cost to increase proficiency of their pilots, and at the same time, bring in modern training technologies and simulations such as VR devices and small agile stuff that can really get after, you know, the training. So, you know, I think the army sees a, you know, a three or a four prong problem set, however you want to look at it. They have the. They have the energy and the reflection time to take a break and take a small breath. And so it allows them the opportunity to go and fix, you know, what they see as their. Their issues down there. And frankly, you know, it starts with the aircraft behind us, right?
[00:13:06] John Ramstead: Yeah. And it sounds like after the op tempo over in the Middle east for such a long period of time and then things slowed down, the army probably stepped back, did an after action report, and said, you know what? Pilot training is something we have an opportunity and actually there's a need to address. Is that what prompted all this conversation?
[00:13:26] Matthew Dorram: Yeah. And really, as we mentioned earlier, the mishap rate right now, if you're tracking any of that within the army, the Army's mishap rate is climbing at a pretty steady and a very unsustainable level there. So they're trying to get in front of that problem.
[00:13:47] John Ramstead: Here's what I'd like to do, John, is could you walk me through what the Army's flight school next program is, how it came about?
And I'm just wondering, right? You know, I'm 58 years old. I went through military flight training in The Navy, you know, back in the 80s and 90s, are there some generational differences between you and also the people that are coming in, how they learn, how they think, mindsets that you had to take into account as you were looking at this initiative?
[00:14:15] John E. Novalis: Well, I think we'll start off, you know, Matt, being the instructor pilot, I'm going to turn it over to him to talk through the current flight school next construct by hours. And I think that'll kind of give us a little bit better picture so that I can answer the other portion of that, Matt.
[00:14:33] Matthew Dorram: Okay. Well, so first and foremost, nothing official from the army has really hit the streets yet in the form of a request for proposal.
But all indications are pointing toward the Army's going to come and ask industry to bring them a turnkey training solution, what we call a cocoa. Contractor owned, contractor operated.
They're going to get out of the business of purchasing a new training fleet of helicopters. That's the first big, big difference between what flight school next is going to be versus the way it's been for all these years that we're talking about. So the Army's not going to buy a helicopter. They're going to say, hey, bring us a solution that brings the aircraft, the instructor pilots, the maintenance, all of the admin support and even the simulation support and bring us a turnkey training solution that answers all of their needs. And so I think what you're going to see here is a competition develop that the army is going to get to evaluate a wide variety of solutions from different industry partners out there, teams of companies essentially. There will unlikely be a single entity that goes after this in any way. It's going to be teams of companies that are exercising their best practices and their strengths to bring a turnkey modernized training solution to the Army. And so that's the first real pivotal difference. And in fact, you being a Navy guy, the Navy is already moving out on a similar process. They're calling it copter stands for contractor owned pilot training rotary. And they're in the midst of some small group tryouts on that right now and they're going to probably go to a long term contract to provide the same kind of primary training or as the Navy would call it, ab initio, you recognize that phrase. But, but so going back to, yeah, what we think the Army's going to come for, they want that turnkey solution that brings it all under one umbrella, one contract to really modernize and refocus the army on fundamental pilot skills so that they can then go on to the next phase of training in their go to war operational aircraft.
[00:17:05] John Ramstead: Yeah. Matt, what problem does this solve for the Army?
[00:17:09] Matthew Dorram: Well, it solves really all three that John just mentioned. It solves the cost problem. Because right now what you have at Fort Novosel is you've got about four or five different contracts that provide different elements of what's known as IERW today, initial entry, rotary wing. So four or five different contracts that provide those different elements. And the cost overruns are really killing the Army. So we, with one single new contract that brings the whole program, there's going to be cost savings for the Army.
[00:17:44] John Ramstead: So that's first and foremost, they're gonna contract with that team for this whole solution that you just outlined is the goal. Yeah, okay.
[00:17:51] John E. Novalis: Yeah. And remember, the army owns the current fleet of aircraft, Correct? Right. They own them, which means they own the problems too. They own sustainment and the logistics trail and the maintenance of it and depot.
[00:18:07] John Ramstead: Level maintenance and everything.
[00:18:10] John E. Novalis: They own that whole thing. And so, you know, I think like I said, you know, wow, you know, you do an AAR and you go, why are we doing this? Especially when you look across the world and so many other, you know, not only countries, but organizations simply say, you know, send their guys to a certification training base, they get certified, they come back to them, and then, then the service can then train those individuals in whatever their modern aircraft is going to be. Right. And of course, it just makes sense that it's more cost efficient. I think Matt was kind of went around, he mentioned it about this thing's going to be an open competition. And the reason I think that the Army, a strategic way I would think of it is you don't know what you don't know. Right. You've been doing something the same for, you know, darn near six decades and you just maybe you're not aware of what technologies are out there, what training methodologies are out there, what services are out there. You know, how can this be done in an efficient way? And I know later maybe we'll touch base on the Bell training academy and how it enables our approach to flight school next. But they're doing that on a daily basis, right? Modern classrooms and high speed this and that. And, you know, you mentioned about how, you know, I have two sons and they try to keep me up to date, though I'm very resistant to it, but they do keep me up to date. And I recognize that the way they want to learn and the way they are, you know, instantly capable of grabbing any kind of device and immediately Figuring it out because they're not afraid. Whereas it would take me weeks, maybe months, maybe never. So, you know, that part of the solution has to be within this has to include that. Right. How are kids learning today? And I do call them kids because I'm old, so I can call them that. But you know, those young tenants and warrant officers, they learn differently. And you must create a service that allows them to utilize their skills right to the actual best method. And so, you know, we got some ideas, you know, how to improve that. And you know, it's not nothing new in rocket science, but it's not incorporated, I think it's not incorporated today in the Army's training.
[00:20:48] John Ramstead: Yeah. What do you guys think sets Bell apart in participating in this moving forward?
[00:20:56] Matthew Dorram: You know, Bell, we've been training military pilots at Bell since 1946.
So Bell has been training helicopter pilots for a long, long, long, long time. And we, and we still do. We mentioned the Bell Training Academy and that's really all they do. And they really are the, the recognized leader in the world on training non standard and emergency procedures training. You can look out our windows here any given day and look right at our practice area across the way and you can watch aircraft doing auto rotations to the ground over and over and over and over. They do, I think about 2000 full touchdown auto rotations over there every month. So they are the experts at teaching. And going back to our earlier conversation, how do you make a good pilot? You train them how to handle the aircraft in all the emergency and non standard fashions. And then by default they become strong, fundamental, foundational pilots. So that's what they do at the Bell Training Academy.
[00:21:56] John Ramstead: I also think, you know, I gotta actually throw in an anecdote and his name escapes him as a gentleman I talked to at Verticon, but he went through the Bell Training Academy. He flies for a sheriff's department and some of the, but extreme conditions, you know, whatever. I don't know what low altitude is, engine loss at like right at the edge, 100, 200ft or certain winds. But you guys put him into extremist situations where you have literally a few seconds to react to be able to do the auto rotation safety. And he had such a level of confidence, he brought it back to his aviation department, which was out in California. But he was singing your praises as we were talking with him out there. Because it's not just about the auto rotation, it's about then, okay, what if it happens here at this edge of the envelope or here at this Edge. Is that fair?
[00:22:44] Matthew Dorram: Oh, yes, fair. Where the engine failure happens is critical.
And so training those different types of auto rotations is very, very important.
[00:22:54] John E. Novalis: The GEO joke is good.
[00:22:56] Matthew Dorram: Yeah, the GEO joke is okay. Ah. So, yeah, I've been cleared to tell a joke, sir.
[00:23:04] John Ramstead: Go ahead.
[00:23:05] Matthew Dorram: Okay, so I'll just. We'll just share it with the team here.
So about a year ago or so, when John and I started working together on this program, I went to work for John. I had been pursuing the flight school next campaign for quite a long time, but had the good fortune to get John as my new boss. And so we took him over to the Bell Training Academy one day to go fly and fly the 505. And so we got in there and our chief pilot from the Bell Training Academy was flying with John. We put him up there first. And long story short, John was within a few minutes, he's doing full touchdown auto rotations in a Bell 505 and did a great job. And at the end of that, you know, I said, you know, it's so easy in a Bell 505 to do autos, even a general can do it. And so I've been making hay on that. We've got a few general officers in the building here, so I replay that joke quite often at their expense. You know, It's a good W5. I can tell that joke about a general.
[00:24:09] John E. Novalis: Anybody that has 7,000 hours can. They can take it on. I'm not going to meet his standard, that's for darn sure.
[00:24:15] John Ramstead: I bet.
[00:24:17] John E. Novalis: But John, you know, just as a caveat to that last question, you know, Bell, not only do we produce a great aircraft, but, man, we have such a great history with the army, you know, I mean, we produced the, uh, one, you know, I mean, we.
[00:24:33] John Ramstead: That was the first helicopter I ever flew, John.
[00:24:35] John E. Novalis: Yeah, me too. You know, of course, back then it still had a Nash tray. And, you know, my Vietnam IP was smoking. I was terrified of a lieutenant to say anything. But, you know, we have this long legacy, right, with the army. And by the way, we're going to have a future with them when it comes to Flora. Right.
That aircraft is going to change how we fight the Army. And, you know, that's. It's only going to be in a matter of years here, but, you know, we're going to be. Bell is going to be back there.
So obviously, you know, looking at our history and our future, it also kind of puts us right in the mix of this too. Right?
[00:25:19] John Ramstead: Yeah.
[00:25:19] John E. Novalis: We want to be a part of Fort Novosel, formerly Fort Rucker. And. And I think we're the right company with the right history.
[00:25:27] John Ramstead: Yeah, love that. And you know, Matt, you've touched on some of the fundamentals, right? How to train training in a way that, you know, this generation can do it quickly. I'm sure there's technology simulators, there's principals, but what are some of the fundamentals that you would say of that flight school next is going to be emphasizing?
[00:25:49] Matthew Dorram: Well, I think again, John, not, not 100% knowing exactly what the army is going to ask for and want to do. But it is our firm belief that they do want to what I would call go back to the future. And that is going back to training these maneuvers that we've been talking about. These, the different types of auto rotations, hydraulics off stuck pedal maneuvers that really task those brand new student pilots to handle the aircraft in those situations. And what you have to understand is that in the current construct, just because of the limitations of the current training helicopter, those maneuvers are largely off the table. You can't do them. In other words, the current training helicopter is a twin engine helicopter. And nobody out there in industry or military does practice autorotations to the ground. In a twin engine helicopter. The inertia of the rotor system is too low. They don't auto rotate very well. Of course, the likelihood of actually needing to do that is very, very low because it has a twin engine. Right? But nobody trains those maneuvers to the ground. So when I say go back to the future, the army can now by way of flight school next, they can choose a solution that includes an aircraft like the one behind us here, the 505, that gives them the ability to go back to training those maneuvers. And that in and of itself is going to build those foundational skills for pilots to where when they go off to their go to war aircraft, they've got the right skill set to go on and become combat ready aviator.
[00:27:35] John E. Novalis: And I think something's worth mentioning, John. You know, at the beginning you said, I don't know, maybe it was the conversation before you asked us if either one of us had ever done it, an auto rotation in real life. And then the answer is no, but. And the counter argument that you will hear is, well, you're always in a twin aircraft these days in a modern flight profile, at least for the military, why would you practice auto rotations when you really don't need to or you may never have one, right? But what it does do is, is it builds confidence, right?
That is something you have to impart on these young pilots when they exit. They gotta be confident they can fly anything and it doesn't matter something catastrophic happens. They still understand the basics, that they can get themselves safely to the ground and they're not gonna get flustered. Cause they've seen failure in its worst case. And there is probably no way to measure that. Right. That, that aspect of being a pilot. And you were a pilot too, man. We, you know, they may call us a little bit cocky sometimes, but that's, that's confidence bleeding through from our training that allowed us to do unbelievable things in combat. Unbelievable things.
[00:28:54] John Ramstead: And think about this too. You might be in country, and if you do have to do it, it's not just you and your co pilot. You might have 5, 6, 10, 19 people lives that you're responsible for that you're carrying around. So if you don't know how to do this well, it's not just your life at risk. It's people on the ground and it's everybody else that you're responsible for.
[00:29:16] John E. Novalis: You're absolutely. John, I wish I would have made that, that point, but you're absolutely right. It's about the soldiers in the back and not 10 of the times.
[00:29:22] John Ramstead: Yep, 100%. Now, you know what, you guys are giving me some flashback though, because this is the same flight training, you know, this approach that I had 300 sorties over two years before I got my wings. And I'm just feeling this anxiety that I had every morning when I woke up and had to go fly.
[00:29:40] Matthew Dorram: Yeah.
[00:29:41] John Ramstead: Because that was every day. But you know what, you get to the point where you feel comfortable and I, you know, when I flew in Iraq and I had some very extremist situations, that kind of training, I know for a fact on at least three different occasions saved my life.
No doubt. I mean, this is what you guys are talking about, this kind of approach to training that I know we used to have in the Navy. I don't know actually what it looks like right now. This is, this is an interesting conversation. So. But I'd love to actually jump into the 505 because that is one pretty airplane. It's beautiful. We got to see it. But what is it about the 505 that you think makes it the perfect choice for this kind of training approach with flight school next.
[00:30:22] Matthew Dorram: So, you know, for me, when I look at and when I fly a 505, the beauty of it is that it's got all this modern integrated glass Garmin 1000 cockpit. So it resonates Very well with the young generation. They're very adept at glass already.
[00:30:39] John Ramstead: And you can fly it, evidently.
[00:30:42] Matthew Dorram: And general officers can do it. Yeah. I mean, so we combine modern technology in the front. We combine that with a fadec controlled engine that provides a tremendous amount of safety and reliability.
So that's a great safety feature there. But we really have put it in an aircraft that is not overly sophisticated. It doesn't have a bunch of pilot augmenting features of it. In other words, you have to put your feet on the pedals and you have to push them. And you have to learn that muscle memory that every time I make a collective input, there's an equal and opposite pedal input that needs to be made. And also typically a cyclic that has to be made. We're learning all of those basic skills that some of the aircraft out there today, they just don't do it. You can a lot of aircraft out there today, I can put my feet flat on the floor and pick the thing up to a hover and it won't even change heading.
[00:31:50] John Ramstead: Well, that's good for me.
[00:31:52] Matthew Dorram: Pilots are not learning how to really exercise all of those basic stick and rudder skills. And then we also combine that. We've talked a lot about auto rotations, the 505. Much of the drivetrain is really the same drivetrain that's been in some Bell aircraft for almost 50 years now. The Long Ranger, it's tried and true. It's got great performance. It's got great autorotational handling characteristics and high inertia. So what that gives the instructor pilots is the ability to really stress those students and put them in autorotations in all those different kinds of environments and force them to fly the aircraft to its full extent, but with a great safety margin available because of its auto rotational handling characteristics.
[00:32:50] John Ramstead: Well, you know, it sounds like there's like the stick and rudder skills have to be there. Do you call it stick and rudder in a helicopter?
[00:32:57] Matthew Dorram: Well, we do. We shouldn't, but we do anyway.
[00:33:02] John Ramstead: How about, you know, basic air work? Right.
It forces you to focus on air work fundamental. It sounds like it also has enough automation that I'm going to learn some of the system approaches that when I do transition to my fleet airplane, I'm going to be able to kind of maybe compress that. Is that one of the goals of the program or not?
[00:33:23] Matthew Dorram: Sure, yeah. All of the modern glass that's in it, it definitely prepares them for all their future follow on combat aircraft assignments that they're going to train in and go and Operate in. And yeah, it just makes it a seamless, you know, the days of what we would call steam gauges, they're gone. Right. Nobody wants to look at them, nobody wants to maintain them for sure. And as a brand new student pilot, they want to see glass. They're used to seeing glass. We're a generation now of student pilots who grew up with a glass phone in their hand.
[00:33:58] John Ramstead: That's true.
[00:33:59] John E. Novalis: I think on the other side too, John, the aircraft is.
It's easy to maintain. Let's just say it's easy to maintain. So if you're a maintainer, you want something you can get onto and fix and swap out engines and all of this. And it's a 206, it's a bell 206 that has hundreds of thousands of hours of flight time behind it and a lot of the basic transmission and that are the same. And you know, it performs well and it's durable. Right. Because obviously you're doing autos. This is why a lot of people don't want to do autos to the ground. Because, you know, you're going to bend some metal, you know, there's going to be a hard landing out there and there's going to be, you know, some of these things and that's going to happen while you're doing training. And so, you know, the aircraft's durable too, which I think is definitely a key factor for that aircraft.
[00:34:57] Matthew Dorram: And then also to that end, the safety of it, you know, crash attenuating seats all the way around back and front, you know, that, you know, in, in the rare case that we do have, you know, something happen. And as John mentioned, it will happen when you are training hard and training properly. You're going to have new pilots, brand new pilots. You're going to have. I mean, it's always been that way. You're gonna. Somebody's gonna bend a tail stinger or a little hard landing and spread the skids a little bit. These kinds of things are going to happen in a training, a primary training program.
[00:35:31] John Ramstead: Well, actually you want it to happen because if it's never happening, it means you're probably not pushing the guys to actually learn the real skills.
[00:35:37] Matthew Dorram: Is that in a perfect world you want to exercise them right up to the point where we're not bending helicopters. Right. We don't want to do that. That becomes cost inefficient. Yes. You don't really want to do that fair and done properly with highly trained instructor pilots that we will have that allows the army to get back to Doing this kind of training.
[00:36:05] John Ramstead: That's true. It is the instructor pilot's job to make sure that that doesn't happen. That's right.
[00:36:09] Matthew Dorram: Because on the mishap report, no matter what that student pilot does, you know what it says at the very end? It says the instructor pilot failed to take timely corrective action.
So it's always back on.
[00:36:24] John Ramstead: I hate when that happens.
Well, you know, compared to what the army is currently using for initial helicopter training and other light helicopters that are either on the market or coming on the market shortly, how would you position the 505? How do you think about it in the landscape of light helicopters?
[00:36:45] Matthew Dorram: Want Dan or you want me to take it?
[00:36:47] John E. Novalis: Go ahead.
[00:36:48] Matthew Dorram: So I think it's the ideal solution for the army. I think it fits right in the sweet spot. You know, there are other single engine turbine helicopters out there that will certainly be part of this competition in some fashion. There are other manufacturers that will come to play on somebody's team. But some of those aircraft, they maybe just aren't quite durable enough, robust enough to handle this kind of training environment.
[00:37:18] John Ramstead: Because they could be doing six, seven, eight sorties a day every day.
[00:37:21] Matthew Dorram: Yeah, you're talking about, I mean, the Fort Novacell flight training machine, let's call it turns out it starts a brand new class of 50 some aviators every two weeks. It turns out about 1300 pilots a year. And that training, that portion of the training program alone is about 150,000 blade hours annually. So there is no other flight training program in the whole world that is like Fort Novosel. It's the busiest airspace I think in the country.
The number of aircraft launching and recovering twice a day, three times a day, when you count the night periods.
It's an incredibly robust flight training machine that never stops.
[00:38:06] John E. Novalis: But I think if you were measuring the aircraft, right, you would say, okay, I want a durable aircraft. I want it to have enough sophistication. I want it to be a cost effective aircraft. And though you may take and find an aircraft that's cheaper than the bell 505, you may find one that is, you know, super durable. But when you add all those components together, like Matt said, you're in the sweet spot, right? It's gotta. You're in the sweet spot. And that makes that aircraft. And that's why, you know, the Bell 206 was so famous for so many years, right? I mean, because it was in the sweet spot.
[00:38:51] John Ramstead: Right? It's a 206.
[00:38:53] John E. Novalis: This is just a.
[00:38:54] Matthew Dorram: Well, I would call it. It's like the modern incarnation. Modern incarnation. You know, a lot of the dynamic components up top in the drivetrain are the same as a bell 206, but all then below that, a purpose built new fuselage, new engine, and the seating arrangement. Yeah, and one other training benefit of the 505 we didn't even mention yet is the back seat. And for me again, put on my instructor pilot hat, that back center seat for the non flying pilot, because you generally have a two to one ratio, two students, one instructor pilot, one is flying with the instructor pilot and the other is sitting right there. And in the 505, they get to see everything that's happening in the cockpit as well as everything that's outside. So they are still learning, I would say, oftentimes learning more than the student in the hot seat having to.
[00:39:47] John Ramstead: Actually, I would tell you that would be invaluable for me. The way I learned, if I can watch somebody do something. Well, this way, if I could ever get an instructor to do a complex maneuver, wherever I was landing on an aircraft carrier, but I could see it done first, I could then replicate it and if I could sit there and observe another student being instructed through it and then it was my turn, that would be invaluable. And if everybody's basically getting basically two training hops per 40, I think that is, I think that's actually pretty brilliant.
[00:40:19] Matthew Dorram: In all my years up at the high altitude training site, I did a lot of that training in Huey's and that, that center jump seat for the second, the non flying pilot, they got to see and observe and learn so much. Watching the other pilot go and get, get his or her butt kicked by the environment, the environment known as, you know, mountains up to 14,000ft and strong winds and in a place that will really make you work as a pilot. But getting to observe and absorb that information from sort of not being on the hot seat was super valuable. And so that same thing gets, gets replicated in the 505 in this training environment.
[00:41:02] John Ramstead: And I had a question too on mission readiness.
I'm guessing you guys are looking forward. You guys have both been there, you've been in the, you know, the seats in combat. What does the future missions look like possibly, or what's it maybe evolving toward for army aviation? And how does this fit into training people to be mission ready for what, what might be next over the next one, three, five years?
[00:41:26] John E. Novalis: Yeah, I mean, I think we know that, you know, the army strategically, that maybe I say our military strategically is shifting to, you know, the Far East. Right towards China and in the Pacific. And what's going on out there, longer legs, you know, conditions that are pretty darn brutal. You know, salt water and all the things that the Navy and the Marines have figured out over the years.
[00:41:53] John Ramstead: Well, and in that environment, too, your supply chains are going to be stressed.
[00:41:57] John E. Novalis: Absolutely.
[00:41:58] John Ramstead: You're going to be operating at a forward operating base. You're going to probably have to be as self sufficient as possible.
Possibly.
[00:42:05] John E. Novalis: Yeah. And we're going to get a new aircraft. Right. I mean, we are going to slowly, you know, replace the Blackhawk and its limited speed and range and bring on an aircraft that is all about speed and range. Right. We're talking about something that flies like a helicopter and at times when you need it, and it also flies, you know, like a jet. Right. Or not a jet, but, you know, fast, fast plane. And, you know, you got this whole new, you know, training that these, these pilots are going to have to be. They're going to have to be more sophisticated. They're going to be, you know, maybe all by themselves out there, right. Flying long distances. So they better be fundamentally square when they're doing that because they have to rely on themselves, otherwise they won't be coming back. So, you know, I just see that, you know, training that we were talking about going back to the basics, it really is about making sure that the confidence level of our pilots and their skill is capable for the new missions that they're going to be asked to do.
[00:43:10] John Ramstead: Yeah, no, I love that. And you know, what kind of feedback have you guys received from both either your civilian or military training programs that you have now through the Bell Training Academy and all the different initiatives you have?
[00:43:27] John E. Novalis: Well, I think there's no doubt we just like your story about the, you know, the police officer, you know, the Bell training CAD has been doing this for a long time and they're good at it. They're really good at it. And you know, just anyone that goes through that, that feedback is just phenomenal. Right. So, I mean, we haven't really got to that question about the bta, but you know, we're going to use them as, you know, kind of a start point, you know, a place where standardization happens. Right. So that every single instructor pilot, you know, has the basics that the Bell Training Academy wants to impart on them. Right. That doesn't mean every single IP is going to go through the bta. That's not going to happen. But, you know, we're going to make sure the head pilots are, and we're going to train the trainer and make sure. Just make sure those standardizations across the board are good. Right. And we should utilize, you know, the BTA that has done great things already. It would be kind of, you know, stupid of us not to. Right.
[00:44:29] Matthew Dorram: I view the Bell Training Academy for us as what I call a critical enabler. They're going to allow us to take a program that in its current construct today at Fort Novosel, they're not doing a lot of these maneuvers they. That we've been talking about over and over again. So we really have kind of what I would call half a generation of army pilots as well as some instructor pilots down there today that who have never done, let's say, an auto rotation to the ground. So we kind of have to. We have to start over and create a training cadre that prepares those instructor pilots to be ready to go take brand new students and put them through those paces. So it's imperative that our instructor pilots are the best that they can be and that they meet the standard that we need and insist upon at our own Bell Training Academy.
[00:45:22] John Ramstead: Matt, you sound pretty pumped to help the army pilots get back to the basics, because you know how important it is, don't you?
[00:45:28] Matthew Dorram: So I'll tell you what, John, for us, the beauty of being honored to lead with John, this capture for flight school next. So John and I, as well as our chain of command inside of Bell here, we're all a bunch of old army aviators. And you know, above all else, what we really want to see is that the army gets the best possible solution, to get the army what I would call healthy again and get them back to a place where they can put some of these problems and mishaps behind them. But first and foremost, we want the army to get the best solution. We are. We are very passionate about it.
[00:46:11] John E. Novalis: We're passionate and we're invested in it. We want them to get the best solution. And you know what's fun, too is, you know, we get to sit around on a daily basis with, you know, four or five other aviators and not just swap stories, but, you know, talk about what. What would be the perfect solution for it. Right. And that really is exciting, you know, because that's how we're going to approach the problem set for the Army. We're going to give them what we think as former aviators, what we would like to have for ourselves. Right? Or more importantly, my sons love that.
[00:46:48] John Ramstead: And gentlemen, I would like to also say, you know, you've dedicated your lives and your careers to this country, to the army, to army aviation, to accomplishing the mission. You're still doing it in the civilian world. And I'm just incredibly grateful, not only what you do, but your whole team. And let's just say I could come out there and after we had a fun day of flying, and we're sitting there having a bourbon, a good bourbon, and we're on the fire pit, and I just said, hey, guys, what is that? Best possible dream? What are you guys envisioning? Right? What is that legacy that you want to be part of with the work you're doing today? What would you share? Let's start with you, John. And then, Matt, you can. You can. You can land the helicopter.
[00:47:28] John E. Novalis: Well, there you go.
[00:47:29] Matthew Dorram: He's pretty good at it, though.
[00:47:30] John E. Novalis: Great.
You know, I think, you know, it starts off with kind of a maybe a vision. Right? You know, it's a joint team called Bell and the United States army.
And, you know, we are producing the most confident pilots that we can possibly get. That. And these pilots, when they are trained, their ability to get into their modern aircraft and fly it is unmatched. And when they go to combat, they know they're going to win. They know they're going to win. And maybe there's 100 and 200 Bell 505s all painted gray and orange sitting on the ramp down there training these pilots.
[00:48:21] Matthew Dorram: Yeah. And very similar for me, John. I've been at Bell a little over five years now, but I came to Bell with a specific charter, let's call it, to get Bell into this type of business space, the military training services business space. So in my perfect world, if I could go move into the future and be able to look back, I get to see that collaboration between Bell and the United States army and really all branches of DOD in my mind.
[00:48:54] John E. Novalis: Yeah, for sure.
[00:48:54] Matthew Dorram: But what I see is that collaborative construct that is training aviators from zero brand new students all the way out through tilt rotor, ready to go to their first operational unit. That's what I see.
[00:49:12] John Ramstead: Man, I love that. Well, gentlemen, you are welcome back on the podcast anytime you want. Love to have you. And maybe one of these days I can come out and do some flying with you and we could film something out there at your location and, you know, keep knocking them alive. Thanks for what you do.
And this is. This is. I've really enjoyed this conversation. So, you know, as. As things move forward and progress and get more defined, please reach out and come back on anytime.
[00:49:41] Matthew Dorram: Sounds good, John. Thank you for having us.
[00:49:43] John E. Novalis: Yeah, John, it's been a lot of fun. And I know, you know, your audience is aviators, right? So I'm sure that, you know, some of the stuff we've talked about will highly resonate with them. You know, the fundamentals and getting our pilots, you know, back to that standard is what I'm sure your audience probably going. Probably cheering and clapping right now.
[00:50:04] John Ramstead: So I'm sure they are, because I'm. Because I am. Right? That's what we have to do. Because, you know, what mission accomplishment, but you also need to do it safely, and you have to do it in extremis, and you want everybody to come home every time.
[00:50:19] John E. Novalis: All right, John, that's it.
