I am sure that a certain amount of JO's have no aspirations of command, but I would hope they all want to lead.
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First of Navy's new CWO Aviators pin on their wings!
- Thread starter HeyJoe
- Start date
I am sure that a certain amount of JO's have no aspirations of command, but I would hope they all want to lead.
The vast majority have a desire to lead, that is why I left that caveat out.
Really, was it that obvious?
It's about time the Navy instituted a simuliar Army Warrant Officer Flying program. As stated, it will develop more leadership opportunities earlier in the career for their Navy regular line officers. The regular line officers can expect less flying time in their careers as a consequence.
The Army has over 50 years in working out the bugs in their flying Warrant program. In fact, over 95% of their instructor pilots are Warrant Officers. The Navy will hopefully expand this program in the Strike community as well. But then again, it took the Navy over 20 years allowing their Women pilots in the strike community.
Good start Navy. Give the Flying Warrants time to prove their metal and expand the program to the max. Flying Army Warrants are 50% of their pilot force. Just make this opportunity available to civilians without any prior service. Have them meet the same standards for OCS without the college degree requirement.
Navy senior leadership have obviously given the go ahead for this program. Just let it progress and put the experience of piloting expertise in the hands of the flying Warrants. The Warrants will measure up to the job. Let the line officers lead, and let the Warrants fly their butts off.
The Army has over 50 years in working out the bugs in their flying Warrant program. In fact, over 95% of their instructor pilots are Warrant Officers. The Navy will hopefully expand this program in the Strike community as well. But then again, it took the Navy over 20 years allowing their Women pilots in the strike community.
Good start Navy. Give the Flying Warrants time to prove their metal and expand the program to the max. Flying Army Warrants are 50% of their pilot force. Just make this opportunity available to civilians without any prior service. Have them meet the same standards for OCS without the college degree requirement.
Navy senior leadership have obviously given the go ahead for this program. Just let it progress and put the experience of piloting expertise in the hands of the flying Warrants. The Warrants will measure up to the job. Let the line officers lead, and let the Warrants fly their butts off.
You obviously have no concept of what is involved in training a modern day carrier aviator/strike-fighter pilot. Do you have to have a college degree to be able to learn the tactics/weapons/threat/procedures/systems? No. Should the Navy waste money trying to train someone who may not get it? No. Is a college degree a good indications of whether someone is trainable or not? Yes. Even the NAVCAD program, originally designed to bring large numbers of pilots into the fleet required some college.
Your arguments defeat your goal. Less flight time for URL? Less tactical/strategic knowledge for the eventual CAGs, Ship's CO's, CSG Commanders? Yeah, that will work well.
I might buy the argument that P3s need them because of the shallow advancement pyramid caused by lots of JO's and not many DH opportunities, but that is the only argument for the FWO program that makes any sense. In a small, tight knit ready room, the dynamics between the two groups would be awful. ("You go do Evals, I'll bag a few more day traps...")
Hell, I was not impressed with the Warrants in any of my squadrons. They never did any real work, never stood duty, and constantly bitched about something. I'm sure it would be better if they were stealing my flight time, though...
You obviously don't understand the scope or purpose of the Navy's program. How about reading up on it before making ridiculous statements. BTW, how does one prove one's "metal?" Is that done in a foundry, or perhaps a new level of Guitar Hero?
Brett
I'm sprry but even after 50 years the Army still has nto worked out all the bugs with its flying WO program. Whatever the original intent, most regular line officers above O-3, or even O-2, get only a fraction fo teh flgiht time that the WO's do. This leads to less credibility for the Company and Battalion Commanders who lead CWO's who have 5 times the flight time into battle. That is not the case in Naval Aviation and never should be, with CO's, XO's and CAG's usually being the most experienced aviators in a squadron and a Carrier Air Wing.
The biggest difference between Army and Naval Aviation. While Army aviation is an integral part of the Army, it is not one of the principal combat arms and is usually just support. Naval Aviation is a principal combat arm of the Navy, and has been the primary combat arm for the Navy in the past 5 wars.
The single biggest problem, IMO. And it's not just credibility w/in the service, but outside, as well. And don't get me started about when the leadership, AKA the policy-maker(s), start saying what's right or wrong but don't have the experience to truly understand the policy they're enforcing. Give me a few months and I'll elaborate...
This seems to be the same message alwyn2nd always posts here. The words get rearranged, but it's the same misunderstanding of the process as a whole.
- The SECNAV mandated 50% reduction in the mishap rate two years in a row, while at the same time, the Naval Safety Center's budget was halved - and Approach became a bimonthly pub (not a huge deal, but a very visible indicator of the belt tightening).
- In the HSL community we saw FLM cut flight hour allocation even while deployed, so guys came home from their first cruise to qualify HAC w/ 350hrs in model.
- The second order affect of the flight hour limit was that HAC cruises became a premium, so once guys had qualified w/ the minimum number of flt hrs in history, many did not get the opportunity to make the leaps and bounds that comes from being a HAC at sea.
- No Stud Left Behind let guys come through that normally would've been attrited. So now, the less experienced HACs had less competent 2Ps that they got to take to the boat for the first time when it couldn't be managed in the FRS.
- Then, the FWO program was introduced. While there are very few of them now, if the program builds a serious head of steam, I'm sorry, but I don't see any way it can NOT force NAs into the same miserable existence as every Army rotary-wing aviator I've ever met.
- It makes you wonder if we military pilot types are REALLY so far removed from the ATP labor/management relations discussed in that other thread.
...and why was the big boat world left out of FWO? Scoob's theory: How many rotorhead/prop jockeys do you know wearing 4-stars? (It sounds like a conspiracy theory until you've done a tour in DC.)
- In the HSL community we saw FLM cut flight hour allocation even while deployed, so guys came home from their first cruise to qualify HAC w/ 350hrs in model.
- The second order affect of the flight hour limit was that HAC cruises became a premium, so once guys had qualified w/ the minimum number of flt hrs in history, many did not get the opportunity to make the leaps and bounds that comes from being a HAC at sea.
- No Stud Left Behind let guys come through that normally would've been attrited. So now, the less experienced HACs had less competent 2Ps that they got to take to the boat for the first time when it couldn't be managed in the FRS.
- Then, the FWO program was introduced. While there are very few of them now, if the program builds a serious head of steam, I'm sorry, but I don't see any way it can NOT force NAs into the same miserable existence as every Army rotary-wing aviator I've ever met.
- It makes you wonder if we military pilot types are REALLY so far removed from the ATP labor/management relations discussed in that other thread.
...and why was the big boat world left out of FWO? Scoob's theory: How many rotorhead/prop jockeys do you know wearing 4-stars? (It sounds like a conspiracy theory until you've done a tour in DC.)
MasterBates
Well-Known Member
As someone who took many of the "No SNA Left Behind" types to the boat, and did not do a HAC cruise other than workups and JTF Katrina, its going to be REALLY scary when a lot of my contemporaries come back for DH tours with less time than HACs used to have before they were on deployment.
I left HSL with 703 in model. 43 month sea tour, plus the RAG.
When the NSLB types started hitting the fleet, we could see it at the boat. It got ugly a few times, and we DQ'd nuggets, which was about unheard of in HSL.
Scoobs analysis is pretty close.
I left HSL with 703 in model. 43 month sea tour, plus the RAG.
When the NSLB types started hitting the fleet, we could see it at the boat. It got ugly a few times, and we DQ'd nuggets, which was about unheard of in HSL.
Scoobs analysis is pretty close.
I may have spent a lot of time in the Trident Room, but I still got SOMETHING out of ASO school.
Having crewed H-2's in the Navy while on Active Duty and having crewed H-1's in the Army Reserve, I'm going to say you have this mostly right. The Army is about "combined arms". Meaning that they want most of their warfighting assets together on the battlefield working together to bring a world of hurt to the enemy.
Aviation units are typically part of a Regiment that is organic to a Division. So when the Division plans an engagement or battle, they have their own aviation units that they can assign whatever OpOrder they deem necessary. This is, of course, a generalization. There are aviation units outside of the aviation regiment but still in the Division. Most of your Air Ambulance units fall into this category. My first Army Reserve aviation unit was in the standard aviation regiment T.O. for an Army Reserve Division. We were a "lift" Company and flew UH-1H's (slicks) doing ass & trash type stuff. My last AR unit was an Air Ambulance unit and we belonged to a Medical Brigade. Still in the same Division as the rest of the aviation units, but since they have a completely different role, they let the docs decide what to do and where to go.
Where I am going with all this is that yes, there are lots of support roles for Army Aviation units (the lift companies and Air Ambulance), but a -58 and a -64 flying together looking for bad guys is NOT a support role.
I am pleading with those current Army Aviators on this board to correct me where I am wrong. I don't want to be responsible for spreading bad info.
I will say this though, senior Army leadership (O-6 and up) comes across as not understanding how best to use their aviation assets. Also, having done both, I think the Navy way is better overall (and I'm not just saying this to earn rep or brownie points on a Naval Aviation board). The Army way came off as just too casual sometimes.
What I meant by support is in a much broader sense than what you are referring to, though not in the broadest. Naval Aviation assets can and do large scale independent operations. Army aviation does not, and when they tried to do a large scale strike during the start of OIF they failed miserably. They just don't have the training or the equipment to do independent ops. That is not a hit against the Army or their aviators, but they don't need to conduct such ops.
As for the Army leadership not knowing how to use aviation, from what little I have seen and heard I would completely agree with you. That is partly because so few aviators make it to the top ranks, a lot of the Army GO's I have seen wearing wings are wearing aircrew and not pilot wings. The other reason is probably because of the 'support' nature of Army avaition, where independent ops are rare and not the norm.
Bastard. Getting to go to ASO school in Monterey...what a shame the Navy moved the school.