As drones proliferate, Army pilots worry about their future. Will a new approach to flight school help?

“We’re cooked,” one Army aviator said recently, describing the reactions of fellow students at the service’s helicopter flight school to Sikorsky’s new uncrewed Black Hawk . “Why are we even doing this, for real?”

As the Army races to realize the promise of unmanned aircraft—more platforms, more flexibility, less risk to aircrew—it is shrinking the units that fly and maintain the helicopters that have long been central to the service’s way of war. Some pilots worry that their careers and expertise will be lost in the transition, even as some express optimism that the Army’s new contractor-run training approach will make tomorrow’s smaller aviation community better than ever.

The Army has said it will will cut 6,500 of its 30,000 active-duty aviation-community soldiers over the next