U.S. Army Europe and Africa's Theater Fixed-Wing Unit

Training to Be Anywhere, Anytime

By MAJ Brendan A. Fields

Article published on: June 1, 2025 in the April-June Edition of Aviation Digest

Read Time: < 6 mins

United States (U.S.) Army Aviation forces must be organized, trained, and equipped to execute missions against a wide range of threats in various environments. These diverse requirements pose complex problems for today's aviation commanders. Mission demands and limited training opportunities present challenges for commanders who must fight for the time and resources to ensure shared understanding across all levels and implement deliberate aircrew training plans. In this article, I will share lessons learned from Easy Company, 1-214th Aviation Regiment's efforts to establish an organizational vision, develop a training plan, and establish a climate in an effort to mitigate risks associated with Army Aviation's experience gap and the complexities of a demanding operational environment (OE).

Easy Company "Barons," 1-214th Aviation Regiment, 12th Combat Aviation Brigade (CAB), is the only Army fixed-wing asset assigned to U.S. Army Europe and Africa (USAREUR-AF). The unit's mission is to provide C-12 Huron cargo and Cessna UC-35 utility aircraft to conduct theater mission command and transport staff, equipment, and supplies. At its core, Easy Company supports USAREUR-AF's efforts to set the theater and ensure an agile flow of forces into and throughout the African and European theaters in the event of a crisis or contingency. Specifically, the unit provides rapid intratheater fixed-wing transport for Army senior leaders, critical equipment, and other personnel. Successful mission execution requires the unit to perpetually maintain the highest level of readiness, while fighting to find time and space to train.

The USAREUR-AF theater covers over a quarter of earth's landmass, and supporting this expanse is challenging even with experienced aviators. Doing so with aircrews who, like most in Army Aviation, are increasingly junior requires a thorough and deliberately designed training plan. The company routinely finds itself in a myriad of challenging OEs, each with its own unique planning considerations. Extreme cold weather north of the Arctic Circle; high altitudes and hot deserts in Africa; oceanic routing with poor weather and limited alternate airfields; and the denied, degraded, and disrupted space OE (D3SOE) are just some of the planning factors aircrews consider daily. Executing missions in these OEs with inexperienced aircrews incurs a high level of risk. To effectively mitigate that risk, the company needed to take deliberate steps to focus its time, priorities, and resources.

Organizational Vision—Establishing the Why

The first step in risk mitigation was to establish the unit's vision and ensure shared understanding across the formation. Clear and concise verbiage nested with higher headquarters' vision and individualized face-to-face counseling were paramount in this effort. For the unit to effectively achieve its mission, each aircrew member should understand the why and the how. Particularly, pilots-in-command must understand the mission, purpose, and end state, so they can react to any number of factors while hundreds of miles away from station. Deliberate and consistent engagement from the command and senior leaders with individuals, crews, and the company ensure that the unit can maintain its shared understanding.

The unit vision serves as a target for the entire organization. It is the foundation upon which the commander communicates intent. Additionally, it enables leaders to work together in a decentralized manner toward a common purpose. In Easy Company, we aim to begin inculcating our vision at the earliest possible moment for all assigned aircrew members. This typically starts with effective sponsorship, followed by a very thorough onboarding process.

Commanders can determine a unit vision in a variety of different manners. They should consider the composition, size, and other unique traits within an individual organization to decide the best development method. Some methods include polling the organization with pointed questions, holding a summit with representatives from different entities within the unit, or determining it on your own or with input from a few senior leaders. For Easy Company, I developed the vision in collaboration with a select set of senior leaders. With the vision created, it was time to implement it.

To cement the vision amongst the unit, it is important to have a one-on-one conversation with each aviator. Initial counseling is a great time to discuss your vision. It is not enough to print the unit vision out on a slide and post it around the company areas. I found that deliberate face-to-face conversations outlining what the vision is, why it is important, and how it nests into higher headquarters' mission and vision vastly increased shared understanding across my formation. If the leaders within an organization can understand and articulate the mission and vision, as well as why they are important, then they can better synthesize the risk tolerances set by the command.

Developing the Training Plan—How to Get There

After establishing the vision, Easy Company developed a gated training strategy involving various OEs, missions, and theater challenges to build experience among junior aircrew members. Long-range planning deconflicted with known high operating tempo periods, methodical crew selections, and communication of training priorities at all echelons ensure that training events achieve their desired end states and maximize readiness building.

Our first quarter's training plan, "Operation Permafrost," focused on cold weather environments to prepare for missions throughout the winter. The operation's purpose was to equip the aviators with the knowledge and experience required to safely operate in Arctic regions. This training built Easy Company's operational capability, while increasing the individual aviator's proficiency and confidence in extreme cold weather conditions above mountainous terrain. The key tasks included remaining overnight North of the Arctic Circle, operating in icing and other winter hazards, and executing de-icing procedures. Our secondary objectives included oceanic route planning and operating in a D3SOE.

Deliberate pairings of experienced and junior aviators were given the purpose, key tasks, and end state for each training event. Other than these main planning criteria, crews were free to develop their own training routes. Prior to execution, the pilot-in-command briefed how their plan met the commander's intent at Easy Company's weekly training meeting. These methods promote the development of junior aviators' planning and communication skills while ensuring they are meeting the purpose, key tasks, and understand the training's intent. It is also an effective method of mitigating risk prior to the mission by ensuring aircrews have a clear understanding of the complex OEs they will encounter. After each mission, aircrews reported their after-action review comments at the training meeting to improve future iterations.

Aligning quarterly training objectives is an effective way to build expertise, but commanders should also design supplemental training. For example, every aviator assigned to Easy Company, regardless of position, spends their first few weeks at the company working in the operations and planning cell. This provides them with the opportunity to gain an understanding of our mission without major distractions. This simple shift in how an aviator is onboarded has proven to be extremely effective at increasing shared understanding and rapidly building expertise, even when flight hours are limited.

This deliberate training strategy delivered on the expected outcomes, but I also observed several positive results. Aircrews that conducted Operation Permafrost were not only more proficient at operating in cold weather environments, but they also showed an increased ability to execute in other OEs. They adapted faster, thought more critically, and applied problem-solving techniques more readily. This resulted in increased readiness while measurably decreasing the risks associated with our complex mission set.

Establishing a Climate—Reinforce the Vision

The final, and most difficult aspect of this problem set, is fostering an organizational climate. This climate must strive for mission accomplishment, prioritized training, and execution of deliberate risk management processes. Additionally, it must balance each of these perpetually. Change is hard. Establishing new processes and ideas takes concerted efforts over long periods of time. Empowering subordinate leaders, supporting decentralized decision-making, and fostering an understanding of risk management are keys to achieving the climate of a winning organization.

It is critical to quickly onboard and empower your subordinate and informal leaders within the organization. Gaining the buy-in and support from a senior WO or a well-respected pilot-in-command early in your efforts can be a tremendous advantage in the long run. Take additional time with these individuals to lay out the vision and be open to their feedback and input. By including them in the vision from the start, you create a foundation for long-term success even after you depart the unit.

Additionally, emphasizing decentralized decision-making is important in establishing a climate. By empowering junior leaders to make decisions, you can frequently observe if they have a thorough understanding of the vision, mission, and training objectives and correct them if they do not. This iterative process conditions junior leaders to accomplish training with the unit vision in mind and make decisions in line with the commander's intent, even when the commander is not present.

A final, but vital, aspect of the climate must be the execution of deliberate risk management processes. Risk is inherent in everything we do as aviators, and ensuring that subordinates have a deep understanding of this concept is extremely important. It is essential that every aviator can identify risks, understand how to mitigate them, and can communicate this using the Risk Common Operational Picture (R-COP). Analyzing R-COP trends and having discussions between the commander, pilots-in-command, and mission briefing officers amplifies shared understanding within the unit. Energizing my aviation safety officer to facilitate this conversation at pilot-in-command boards is one method we have found to be extremely effective.

Closing Comments

While these examples are specific to its mission to support USAREUR-AF's efforts in setting the theater, the problem set faced by Easy Company is neither new nor significantly divergent from those faced anywhere else in Army Aviation. Preparing for a wide array of situations and threats in unknown OEs is a reality faced by all aviation commanders. Likewise, while each unit's specific circumstances differ, it is essential that commands adopt a deliberate and gated training strategy to achieve their vision.

By developing a unit vision, a commander can illustrate a clear and specific end state for their subordinates. They can use this vision as the guiding principle behind everything the organization does. Integrating this with a training plan to achieve the mission further clarifies what the commander expects from their organization and fosters increased shared understanding among the leadership. Then, through empowering subordinate leaders and calibrating their decision-making and risk management ability through mentorship, the commander can solidify a durable, constructive climate for the organization. Establishing a vision, developing a detailed training plan, and nurturing a climate around the unit vision will effectively mitigate risks and make your unit ready–anywhere, anytime.