Old quote.
Yeah. FE, Malmstrom and Fairchild are mountainous. The others not so much.
Its a different animal flying helicopters at high DA in the mountains. Way different than sea level.
I imagine, they'll have to go through a mountainous flying mission upgrade when they arrive to the unit.
There have been a several instances of students torching engines at KIKR during EP sorties. Due to high DA and lack of experience flying in it. Going from a 30 percent power margine to less than 10 or even sometimes zero is quite a change for a student. In my opinion, they should have kept the training at KIKR. I guess it will be easier to teach students to fly a new aircraft at sea level but the high-da, mountainous flying ops will be the responsibility of the gaining unit. In the end, its not about making the best pilots. It's about keeping polictians happy.