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Flight Training
- Thread starter robav8r
- Start date
There is a lot to potentially unpack there, but I largely agree with both articles (the T-7 in orange and white on the former notwithstanding).
So where to start? The USN has to solve several problems, any one of which is daunting on its own. Aging jet trainer aircraft, low pilot production, a significantly different end state (5th gen aircraft), and changes to how students learn (new tech, cultural changes, etc.).
Adapt or die.
So where to start? The USN has to solve several problems, any one of which is daunting on its own. Aging jet trainer aircraft, low pilot production, a significantly different end state (5th gen aircraft), and changes to how students learn (new tech, cultural changes, etc.).
Adapt or die.
They’re going about it in a pretty measured way. This has been years in the making. I think, overall, it will be a good solution to several problems that seven outlined above.
I think a problem is that we are so focused on production, that once people are “fully qualified” in their platform they are probably a year or less away from being rotated out into shore duty. I’m not advocating directly for longer tours, but Christ at least in VP land it takes ~18 months for a level 300 tacco or PPC; you literally spend a majority of your time in the squadron upgrading. New NFOs show up to a sea tour knowing next to nothing other than how to strap in and do radio comms and it’s the fleets job to train them. Pilots are only capable of flying without killing us with minimal focus on tactics until ~1 year in. So at least for MPRA, we are delivering under qualified people to the fleet and making the squadrons teach them what arguably the FRS should be. It’s not the level 100s’ fault for being a burden until they get to 200 but especially for deployment check ins, it’s a PITA.
Edit: it’s purely bitching but not having a pilot and NFO SMTI/WTI in a squadron is hindering training and lethality all so the carrier can have a shooter. Disassociated sea tours make staff officers and skippers. I know we sign up to be officers first and aviators second, but come wartime I think the navy is going to wish those deckplate billets were manned by someone else so a quality LT who gave a shit can be airborne.
Edit: it’s purely bitching but not having a pilot and NFO SMTI/WTI in a squadron is hindering training and lethality all so the carrier can have a shooter. Disassociated sea tours make staff officers and skippers. I know we sign up to be officers first and aviators second, but come wartime I think the navy is going to wish those deckplate billets were manned by someone else so a quality LT who gave a shit can be airborne.
Sounds like a great start to a point paper.....maybe get it published to get traction??
All valid points. I wonder how a 3.5 or 4 year first sea tour would change the FITREP 500 and timing?
I hate that MPRA (and all non TACAIR communities really) will absolutely die on the hill of disassociated sea tours.
The worst O-4s we had in my JO squadron all spent a tour out of the cockpit in some way, (sadly including some WTIs…). The best ones all flew in some capacity for their “Disassociated” tours. (crazy concept, allowing people to continue to do the thing that the Navy spent 5-ish years and millions of dollars training them to do is a great return on investment).
In my opinion, the disassociated sea tour is one of the biggest killers of morale and retention. If the Navy could just find creative ways to fill those billets, they may have a fighting chance at keeping people around. Instead, they’re sending people kicking and screaming to a tour that they hate, only to make them bitter and giving them even more reason to drop their letter and go to the airlines.
I'm probably one of those rare cases where there is not a single thing the Navy could have done to keep me. I can write a 20 point thesis as to why I was getting out, but bottomline: I was done.
However, if I had been surrounded by my community constantly-- all peers, mentees, and mentors-- I think there is a universe where I change my mind. Instead, JOs on the fence (I wasn't on the fence, but I would have had some doubts otherwise) show up to the boat, experience boat navy culture, and say "oh yea, definitely fuck thisssss!" Good news about a disassociated tour though is I had a full year to deal with the stress of loss of identity and purpose before I got out! Also, it did not feel sad to say "See ya!" on my last day.
I'm going to disagree with you gents about the disassociated tours. When I was a JO I hated the idea and thought the DHs were full of sh!t when they talked about how they enjoyed their disassociateds. Then I did mine (Shooter in Yokosuka).
Dude, before my disassociated I didn't know jack about the Navy. MPRA is a small, insulated world. It's theoretically possible that an MPRA officer could go all the way to post-DH before stepping out of the cockpit/tube (JO, RAG, super-JO, DH, right? with a year at the War College thrown in there somewhere) into a job on a joint staff (not necessarily THE Joint Staff). It's fascinating to me that someone go that long without seeing the Surface Navy up close and personal.
The Surface Navy (and the small part of that that CVNs represent) isn't the whole Navy, but it is probably the biggest single chunk. There were times that the disassociated wasn't fun--but I found it all to be of great value.
I lateral transferred and didn't go back to MPRA for a DH tour. But I probably would have had some catching up to do, for sure. But I do believe in the value of a disassociated tour.
Dude, before my disassociated I didn't know jack about the Navy. MPRA is a small, insulated world. It's theoretically possible that an MPRA officer could go all the way to post-DH before stepping out of the cockpit/tube (JO, RAG, super-JO, DH, right? with a year at the War College thrown in there somewhere) into a job on a joint staff (not necessarily THE Joint Staff). It's fascinating to me that someone go that long without seeing the Surface Navy up close and personal.
The Surface Navy (and the small part of that that CVNs represent) isn't the whole Navy, but it is probably the biggest single chunk. There were times that the disassociated wasn't fun--but I found it all to be of great value.
I lateral transferred and didn't go back to MPRA for a DH tour. But I probably would have had some catching up to do, for sure. But I do believe in the value of a disassociated tour.
I think the discussion about at what point it becomes over-training is a valid one to have. But I can’t help but roll my eyes at the author of that WOTR article using IJN vs USN pilot production during the Big War as an analogy.
The US cranked up pilot production numbers in a big way for the war, yes, but they mostly did it by dialing back training time to an extent that would give any safety officer heart palpitations today. A new ensign in ‘44 or ‘45 hit the Fleet with less than twenty hours of actual flight time in his assigned aircraft, sometimes less, and maybe one CQ period. The result was a lot of dead ensigns. So I don’t get why the author scoffs at the Navy being cautious and methodical while experimenting with the syllabus.
And the biggest problem with Japanese flight training wasn’t their time to train. It was that, unlike the Americans, they didn’t rotate their experienced Fleet guys out to be instructors, but kept them flying until they got killed or too badly injured to stay in the cockpit. So not only were their best pilots not able to pass on their knowledge to the new guys, but their lessons learned weren’t being incorporated into their training programs. Which is much of a muchness with the discussion of Disassoc tours. Most of them are fundamentally useless to both the Navy and the officer. Where is the Navy going to get the best return on its investment, sending a pilot off for the “yellow shirt, gray hull, brown trout” experience, or to an Adversary squadron, FRS, Weapons School, etc? If you really want to use that tour to “professionally broaden” dudes, why not send them on an exchange tour to another community? You might not be there long enough to become a Level 4/5 but you’re a) keeping them flying and b) seeing how the other guy does things.
The US cranked up pilot production numbers in a big way for the war, yes, but they mostly did it by dialing back training time to an extent that would give any safety officer heart palpitations today. A new ensign in ‘44 or ‘45 hit the Fleet with less than twenty hours of actual flight time in his assigned aircraft, sometimes less, and maybe one CQ period. The result was a lot of dead ensigns. So I don’t get why the author scoffs at the Navy being cautious and methodical while experimenting with the syllabus.
And the biggest problem with Japanese flight training wasn’t their time to train. It was that, unlike the Americans, they didn’t rotate their experienced Fleet guys out to be instructors, but kept them flying until they got killed or too badly injured to stay in the cockpit. So not only were their best pilots not able to pass on their knowledge to the new guys, but their lessons learned weren’t being incorporated into their training programs. Which is much of a muchness with the discussion of Disassoc tours. Most of them are fundamentally useless to both the Navy and the officer. Where is the Navy going to get the best return on its investment, sending a pilot off for the “yellow shirt, gray hull, brown trout” experience, or to an Adversary squadron, FRS, Weapons School, etc? If you really want to use that tour to “professionally broaden” dudes, why not send them on an exchange tour to another community? You might not be there long enough to become a Level 4/5 but you’re a) keeping them flying and b) seeing how the other guy does things.
I guess the question becomes what is more valuable, the return on investment for keeping someone flying for longer, or the exposure to the rest of the Navy. For guys going onto Joint staffs, or Command billets, it 100% makes sense for them to do so. But for ~95% of JOs? I don’t think so.
In the age of Training commands being consistently under-staffed, and fleet squadrons flying less and less, I would assume that keeping highly qualified talent around would make more sense. This is exacerbated by Millington playing games with PRDs, shortening shore tours, denying JO sea tour extensions, and even planning on reducing JO sea tour lengths all to preserve an individuals time at the boat. As Waveoff stated, we are already seeing a laughably low ROI on fully qualified Pilots and NFOs after they qualify as a 300. If sea tours start getting shortened, you’ll start to see people getting fully qualified out the door.
Maybe keep the “King-maker” CVN jobs (as they’re so pretentiously known as) for those seeking to be the next CNO, but I think Naval Aviation would be better off by finding ways to keep people in a flying status, instead of forcing everyone into the cookie-cutter golden path.
/Rant over
Why is it necessary for a professional military pilot to tour with the surface Navy? Why isn't it necessary for a SWO to tour with the aviation side of the Navy?
I have tried unsuccessfully for years to square my career-long hate for disassociated tours with the very real need for pilots to provide their input and perspective on staffs, and help bridge the very real cultural gaps between the "haze grey" Navy and the "wild blue yonder" Navy. I think there's a happy medium somewhere.
The bigger and more germane issue is time and resources to train. Every day an SNA/SNFO spends in the pipeline is one less day they're available as a "full-up round" to the squadron/wing/enterprise before they're gobbled up by a disassociated (or a .civ employer). Every aircrew coming back from a disassociated or staff tour gobbles up a lot of resources to retrain with the FRS.
All of this is just on the manpower side. Manufacturing is its own special set of headaches. I remain skeptical of our ability to ramp up manufacturing to replace heavy losses in a conflict.
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Gents, I completely agree with both of you regarding getting utility out of aviators after spending lots of money training them. I also agree there's got to be some kind of happy medium.
My perspective is informed by working for a CNO who had spent his career in the sub nuke silo and was a pretty f-ing poor CNO. I believe that a lot of his issues were caused by his staying in his silo. I think that leadership of aircrew is different from leadership of ABHs is different from leadership of SEALs and the more exposure an officer can get to the different communities, the better prepared they'll be for senior leadership.
And the Navy's system is such that we just don't keep 40-year-olds around to do JO-type flying. Maybe we should in order to maximize the return on the training investment. But we simply don't: no matter how good someone is in the plane, they simply will not be in a squadron as anything but a senior leader after a certain point.
My perspective is informed by working for a CNO who had spent his career in the sub nuke silo and was a pretty f-ing poor CNO. I believe that a lot of his issues were caused by his staying in his silo. I think that leadership of aircrew is different from leadership of ABHs is different from leadership of SEALs and the more exposure an officer can get to the different communities, the better prepared they'll be for senior leadership.
And the Navy's system is such that we just don't keep 40-year-olds around to do JO-type flying. Maybe we should in order to maximize the return on the training investment. But we simply don't: no matter how good someone is in the plane, they simply will not be in a squadron as anything but a senior leader after a certain point.
The fact that most VFA Squadron commanders and CAGs and most TACAIR Admirals went to TOPGUN and never did a shooter tour, boat tour, etc; tells you all you need to know about how much value the disassociated tour is to the Navy.
Literally the fact that TACAIR doesn’t have to do them is a spit in the face to all the other communities.
A good solution for it is to make warrant officers fill disassociated tour billets and keep Aviators flying.
Literally the fact that TACAIR doesn’t have to do them is a spit in the face to all the other communities.
A good solution for it is to make warrant officers fill disassociated tour billets and keep Aviators flying.
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MPRA jokes aside, who do you want filling all those shooter billets? I'm not sure Millington has enough post Div-O, hot running SWOs to fill them all . . . .
But . . . . it would be fun to watch LTJG spiccolli, fresh off his first DDG assignment man the bow cats, stressing about cross wind limitations and weight board numbers
Take a chief or petty officer who has been in that division or field of work for a while and make them a warrant officer. They can fill does billets.MPRA jokes aside, who do you want filling all those shooter billets? I'm not sure Millington has enough post Div-O, hot running SWOs to fill them all . . . .
But . . . . it would be fun to watch LTJG spiccolli, fresh off his first DDG assignment man the bow cats, stressing about cross wind limitations and weight board numbers