On 1 March 1971 the flying program was initiated to test the ground school program initiated by the 57th. For eight months the U.S. aircraft commanders and medics flew over 4,000 hours with VNAF medics and VNAF pilots in order to standardize their approach to medical evacuation in the Mekong Delta. These figures do not reflect in the 57th's overall total for all flying time and patients picked up were logged with VNAF statistics.
