General Staff of the Serbian Army announced an internal competition for selection for the title of pilot, after which officers, employed for a fixed or indefinite period, would become pilots of the 204th Aviation Brigade in Batajnica or the 98th in Kraljevo after only four months of training.
In the former state SFRY there was the "Marshal Tito" Air Force High School in Mostar, where several hundred candidates applied for one place.
Only the best were chosen to go to the Air Force Military Academy in Zadar, and the others were "comfortably" accepted into other military academies. Only the best of the best made it.
It was similar in the FRY and later in the SCG state union, and then the loss of personnel began, so the current government introduced training for reserve aviation officers.
Training as a course
It boils down to the fact that you need to graduate from university, pass medical examinations - and here you are as a fighter pilot. And now they shortened that "training" to four months.
"Four years in Mostar, then two in Zadar, then in Golubovci, and some classics in Pula, and only then are you a second lieutenant-pilot. Not to mention numerous medical examinations," a retired pilot tells "Vreme".
He states that it is crazy to make aviation and pilots in this way, and when the conditions are not wartime, as for example in the Second World War, when pilots were produced after the course, because they were "expendable goods".
And with "Gazelle" we will easily
In the contest, published in the last issue of the "Obrana" magazine, there is also a propaganda report on the completed training of those pilot-trainees for the "Gazelle" helicopter.
Asked to comment on that, the pilot of that helicopter, a retired colonel, replied: "Are you kidding me. Isn't today April 1st?'
And then he explains how much they had and what kind of demanding runs, because "Gazelle" is a small but demanding toy. "We liked to screw each other, but only after finishing the academy, as second lieutenants or lieutenants." And as captains, we realized how responsible a job it is."
Four years in four months
The former pilot-mechanic on the "Gazelle" explains what tasks were put before them - in addition to maintenance, they were also co-pilots. All of them had four years of secondary military school and received special training, including parachute training, after a certain number of years of service.
And according to the conditions of the competition, officers must not be more than 27 years old by the end of 2025, that they have not been negatively evaluated during their service and that they have not been subject to disciplinary punishments and measures. During four months, they have to master selective parachuting and flight training.
Four years fit into four months, concludes one of the retired pilots. He reminds that in 1997, the former JNA bought 16 then modern MiG-29 aircraft. Of the hundreds of MiG-21 pilots who applied for training on that aircraft, less than forty passed the selection.
