Boeing and Leonardo join forces to modernize Army aviator training

U.S. aerospace giant Boeing and Italian firm Leonardo are uniting to offer a contractor-owned, contractor-operated solution for the U.S. Army as the service embarks on an effort to revamp its flight school , the companies announced Monday at the Association of the U.S. Army’s annual conference in Washington.

The two aerospace leaders are going to submit an offering to the Army’s Flight School Next program aimed at creating a more flexible and scalable approach to rotary-wing training focused on going back to the basics — particularly using a single-engine helicopter.

The Army continues to experience catastrophic aviation accidents as it launches a major overhaul of how it trains new pilots. This includes rethinking the type of aircraft used for training, along with a likely shift to