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C-26 Metroliner
Twin turboprops answer Army National Guard
training site’s need for versatility.
by MeLinda Schnyder
The only Army National Guard training site for fixed wing pilots is in the midst of a busy training cycle that of- ficials expect to continue for at least the next two years. The increase in training needs is largely due to aging aviators who have retired and compe- tition from commercial airlines and companies recruiting military pilots.
The Fixed Wing Army National Guard Aviation Training Site – or FWAATS – executes the Army National Guard’s fixed wing flight qualifica- tion and training program using a small f leet of twin-engine turbo- prop aircraft: Fairchild C-26 Metro- liners and Beechcraft C-12 Hurons, the military designation for the Beechcraft King Air 200.
14 • TWIN & TURBINE / August 2021
“A lot of the C-26 Reserve and Army pilots had met their service obliga- tions and retired in the last two years when the hiring was so good out in the airlines,” said Chief Warrant Officer 4 Jack Brink, the FWAATS C-26 section lead and a C-26/C-12 standardization instructor pilot.
That created a gap within the Ar- my’s aviation units, resulting in a shift in the type of training needed.
“We simply react to the needs of the active Army and the Army National Guard, and recently the pendulum has swung heavily from creating instructor pilots and examiners to needing to fill vacancies on their benches,” said Chief Warrant Officer 4 Daniel Latimer, a C-26 standardiza- tion instructor pilot. “So for now, the
demand for fixed wing qualification courses has skyrocketed. We all know aviation runs in cycles, and all indica- tions are that in a few years the pen- dulum will swing back the other way. By then, all the pilots we’re training up now will come back to us for more advanced courses, instructor pilot and instrument examiner courses.”
Brink and Latimer are two of only three full-time C-26 instructors at the FWAATS, which operates from the Northcentral West Virginia Regional Airport in Bridgeport, West Virginia. They expect to see twice as many C-26 students this year and next and there will be an increase among King Air trainees as well.
In a normal year, approximately 100 pilots and nonrated aircrew