Overview | Courses | Students | Other sites

Overview

Part of the School of the Americas from 1984 until 2001, when that facility became the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC), the Spanish Helicopter School Battalion (SHSB) offers Spanish-language rotary-wing (helicopter) training. The SHSB is one of only a few facilities on U.S. soil that offers military training in Spanish. (The others are the WHINSEC, the Inter-American Air Forces Academy (IAAFA), the Navy Small Craft Instruction and Technical Training School (NAVSCIATTS), and the Center for Hemispheric Defense Studies (CHDS).The SHSB trained 142 students in 1999 and 163 in 1998, and was expected to train up to 297 in 2000.^[1] Many Colombian pilots have attended the SHSB since 2000 to gain proficiency in flying the dozens of helicopters provided through the Plan Colombia and other aid packages since 1999.

Training at the SHSB began in 1984 in response to a State Department request to train military personnel from El Salvador in helicopter skills. Between 1984 and 1989 the facility trained 109 Salvadoran students. In 1991 the school became the Helicopter School Battalion, School of the Americas (HSB, SOA), combining all of the U.S. Army's Spanish aviation training within the curriculum of the School of the Americas. Although its name changed in October 1994 to the "Spanish Helicopter School Battalion, Aviation Training Brigade," the battalion maintained its relationship with the School of the Americas until that institution changed its name.

The SHSB includes among its facilities a night vision device laboratory, UH-1 "Huey" and UH-60 "Blackhawk" helicopter flight simulators, an aeromedical center, an aviation learning center, and aircraft maintenance facilities. The HSB also provides mobile training teams (MTTs) and Subject Matter Expert Exercises (SMEEs) in Latin America.

HSB Students 2000

Courses:

• Brief descriptions of courses offered at the SHSB in 2002, from Fort Rucker website, November 2002

Other sites

• Fort Rucker website
• SHSB page from globalsecurity.org

Source:

¹ U.S. Army, Spanish Helicopter School Battalion, "HSB Command Brief," HSB web site, 1999 <http://www-rucker.army.mil/shsb/brief.htm>.