UH-60 Pilot

You have the wings and the beret and about 400 hours. The aircraft commander in the left seat is watching everything — and so is the maintenance warrant who knows more about this airframe than you ever will.

You flew through the Initial Entry Rotary Wing (IERW) program at Fort Novosel and arrived at your first unit with somewhere between 180 and 250 hours in the UH-60 and the designation of Pilot in Command (PC) still a future event, not a current fact. As a WO1 or CW2 you are the Pilot (P) — the right-seat crew member on assault, MEDEVAC, VIP, or general support missions depending on your gaining unit. You fly three to five days a week in a garrison or deployment environment, brief and debrief every mission against the risk-assessment matrix in AR 95-1, maintain your Aircrew Training Manual (ATM) proficiency tasks current, and work toward Aircraft Commander designation under your unit standardization program. You also pull your share of the administrative and readiness load: you are the assigned pilot on one or more tail numbers, you perform operator-level preflight inspections, and you participate in the unit's safety program. The hour-building and evaluation cycle is the operational engine of your first three years — the ATM grids and the Instrument Flight Rules (IFR) recurrency events do not wait.

• 01Execute the full UH-60 operator preflight — crew/passenger brief, aircraft systems check, DA Form 2408-13-1 entries — to TC 1-210 and ATM standards before every flight.
• 02Fly the UH-60M (or A/L as assigned) to unit proficiency standards: pinnacle approaches, slope landings, confined-area operations, external-load hookup, brownout/degraded visual environment awareness.
• 03Run the crew mission briefing and risk-assessment worksheet per AR 95-1 and the unit risk-management standing operating procedures — no takeoff without a signed-off brief.
• 04Maintain ATM task currency across the required categories: day/night unaided, NVG, instrument, sling load, formation, and emergency procedures — own your grids.
• 05Execute emergency procedures from memory: engine failure at altitude, single-engine approach, tail rotor failure, autorotation to touchdown — the PE standardization pilot tests them cold.
• 06Navigate in IMC and degraded-visual-environment conditions: GPS primary, backup dead-reckoning, low-level navigation, TERPS IFR approach procedures under IFR clearance.

• —AR 95-1 — Flight Regulations (the governing reg for every Army flight; know the risk-assessment, crew-rest, and flight-hour limitation chapters).
• —TC 1-210 — Aircrew Training Program Commander's Guide (how the ATM system works; the framework your evaluator uses on every formal evaluation).
• —ATM 1-153D — Aviator's Aircrew Training Manual for the 153D MOS (the proficiency-task grid you own and defend at every evaluation).
• —TM 1-1520-280-10 — UH-60M Operator's Manual (know every systems-operation chapter before your first evaluator flight).
• —TM 1-1520-237-10 — UH-60A/L Operator's Manual (legacy variant your unit may still be flying).
• —TC 1-204 — Night Flight Techniques and Procedures (NVG operations — your first-year operational environment at every assault aviation unit).

• —Aircraft Commander (AC) designation within the ATM timeline set by the unit standardization program — typically 12-24 months post-IERW, pending evaluator sign-off on all required ATM tasks.
• —Annual instrument proficiency check (IPC) current; semi-annual or annual ATM evaluation completed without unsatisfactory (U) grades on required tasks.
• —Crew-rest, flight-hour, and risk-assessment compliance documented on every flight — one AR 95-1 violation goes in the flight record and follows the CW2.
• —Night Vision Goggle (NVG) currency maintained — most units require NVG flight currency within the preceding 60 days for NVG-mission qualification.
• —ACFT pass (warrant officers have the same fitness standards as commissioned officers at the same age group) — the Aviation Center of Excellence and unit chain of command hold aviators to the standard.

• —Signing the preflight log without completing the full operator check. The maintenance crew finds the discrepancy on the next maintenance test flight and your signature is in block seven of the -13-1.
• —Departing on a mission without a completed, signed risk-assessment matrix. The AR 95-1 violation is not forgiven because the mission was "routine" — the safety officer sees the log.
• —Busting ATM task currency and hoping the evaluator does not check the grids. The standardization pilot checks the grids. The remedial evaluation goes in the flight record.
• —Skipping the crew briefing on a "quick" flight. The Class A mishap investigation always finds that the pre-mission brief was abbreviated or skipped on the day everything went wrong.
• —Treating NVG operations as an upgraded version of unaided night flight. Goggle limitations (halos, depth perception, restricted field of view) are a distinct skill set — underestimating the transition gets pilots killed.

The good WO1 or CW2 is the right-seat pilot whose aircraft commander stops correcting the preflight and starts asking what the right-seat wants in the brief. ATM grids are current before the standardization pilot asks, the risk assessment is completed without prompting, and by month eighteen the Aircraft Commander packet is moving — not because the time was served, but because the evaluator said so.

You are an aircraft commander, instructor pilot, or standardization pilot — the person the battalion commander puts in the left seat on the mission that cannot go wrong and the person the Aviation Safety Officer calls first when it did.

At CW3 you are a seasoned Aircraft Commander (AC) with 1,000-plus hours, typically designated as an Instrument Flight Examiner (IFE), Instructor Pilot (IP), or Maintenance Test Pilot (MTP) depending on the path your unit and the Aviation Branch shaped. You lead multi-ship missions, brief complex risk environments, conduct crew evaluations under the unit ATM program, and advise the battalion and brigade aviation staff on crew-force readiness. CW4 and CW5 warrants are Instructor Pilots, Standardization Pilots, Aviation Safety Officers, Battalion Aviation Officers, or Aviation Branch staff filling technical authority billets — the positions where flight currency and technical depth combine with the institutional authority to set the standard for everyone below. You write Airworthiness Qualification evaluations (the "Dunker" and ATM formal evaluations), you sit on the unit Safety Review Board, and you advise the battalion S3 on mission risk in terms the tactical planner understands. The higher the CW grade, the more the role shifts from executing the mission to ensuring everyone else can execute it.

• 01Lead a multi-ship assault package or MEDEVAC mission set — brief the crew force, execute the risk assessment, run the debrief, and turn the lesson into a training event the unit improves on.
• 02Conduct an ATM formal evaluation as an Instructor Pilot or Standardization Pilot — grade objectively, brief the unsatisfactory task with a specific correction plan, and document it in the flight record without softening the finding.
• 03Execute Maintenance Test Flight (MTF) profiles on aircraft returning from phase, depot-level repair, or component replacement — fly the test card, write the discrepancy clearly, and release or hold with the same authority as the maintenance warrant who handed you the aircraft.
• 04Advise the battalion S3 and brigade aviation staff on crew-force availability, task-organization risk, and ATM proficiency gaps — translate "red on three tasks" into mission-planning language the tactical planner can use.
• 05Serve as Unit Aviation Safety Officer (UASO) under AR 385-10 — manage the unit's Army Accident Avoidance Course (AAAC) records, coordinate the Safety Review Board, and submit the Aviation Safety Program inputs to brigade.
• 06Mentor WO1/CW2 pilots toward Aircraft Commander designation — fly with them, evaluate honestly, brief the unsatisfactory finding the same day, and document the progression plan.

• —AR 95-1 — Flight Regulations (you enforce it and you brief the battalion on what changed when the revision drops).
• —TC 1-210 — Aircrew Training Program Commander's Guide (you design and run the unit ATM program at CW3-CW5; you do not just participate in it).
• —TC 1-204 — Night Flight Techniques and Procedures.
• —FM 3-04 — Army Aviation (the operational doctrine framework; know what chapter your battalion's mission set lives in).
• —AR 385-10 — Army Safety Program (the UASO's governing document; know the reporting, investigation, and safety-program-management chapters cold).
• —TM 1-1520-280-MTF — UH-60M Maintenance Test Flight Manual (required if you hold MTP designation — this is not the operator's manual).

• —Instructor Pilot (IP) or Standardization Pilot (SP) designation completed under the unit standardization program — the CW3-CW4 credential that separates a senior Aircraft Commander from a technical authority.
• —Maintenance Test Pilot (MTP) qualification current if the unit assigns the role — one missing recurrency event grounds the warrant from the test-flight schedule.
• —Instrument Flight Examiner (IFE) designation current if assigned — IFE check rides expire; managing the currency is the SP/IFE's own responsibility.
• —Aviation Safety Officer course complete (if assigned as UASO) and unit safety program current — no lapsed AAAC records, no overdue Safety Review Board minutes.
• —Flight-hour and crew-rest logs clean across the entire crew force the SP/IP supervises — one violation in the crew-force record is a unit-level finding, not just an individual one.

• —Softening an unsatisfactory ATM evaluation because the pilot is a peer or a friend. The standardization warrant who upgrades a borderline performance is the one named in the Class A mishap investigation six months later.
• —Releasing an aircraft from an MTF with a gray-area discrepancy rather than writing the finding and holding the bird. The crew chief who signs it next takes the same risk you declined to document.
• —Letting the battalion S3 schedule a mission outside the unit's ATM proficiency envelope without a formal risk assessment at the brigade aviation element level. The approving authority for above-TLP-risk missions is not the S3.
• —Letting crew-rest compliance drift during high-tempo operations because "everyone is tired." One crew-rest violation in the flight records is the thread the safety investigation pulls.
• —Losing flight currency in a required category (NVG, instruments, sling load) because the scheduling officer did not track it. At CW3-CW5 you own your currency — the standardization pilot does not babysit it.

The good CW4 or CW5 is the warrant the Aviation Safety Officer names in the brigade brief when the safety program is clean — and the warrant the battalion commander names when the mission is too complex to brief to anyone else. Evaluations are honest, the crew force is current, and the unit ATM grids show what the unit can actually do. When the CW5 walks out of formation at retirement, the standardization program runs the same way because three CW3s were built to run it.