Flight Training

[IRfly]

My perception is the FAO just relegates you to staff work for the rest of your career. Is that perception accurate, and if so, did you know that going in? How often was your foreign area expertise utilized vs. just being a plug and play staff action officer?

No, it's not particularly accurate. For someone coming in as an O-4, you'll probably get sent to a staff just so that you can get a hard-ish breakout (1 of 4 is better than 1 of 1) to set you up for the O-5 board, but generally you won't just bounce from staff to staff. The ones that do are usually punks who are trying to homestead in the DC area(?!).

This is what people going into the FAO community need to know: there are two big issues with the FAO community's talent management, IMHO. #1 is that there just isn't enough talent. Great, your parents are Chinese and you grew up speaking Mandarin. Great, you were born in the Soviet Union. But how good of an officer are you? Have you ever even touched warfare? *Can you write in English?* In order to reduce time and cost to train, we're grabbing people who check the qualification blocks (foreign language, master's degree, in-country experience) who were accountants. It's silly and sad and you might end up working for an O-6 that is mind-numbingly poor at their job. #2 is that the community is matched, numbers-wise, almost exactly to billets it has to fill. There's little to no flexibility and zero transparency. So you maybe studied Mandarin for 8 years and wrote your doctoral dissertation on PLAN naval tactics--orders to Sierra Leone incoming! Part of this is because a lot of operational (i.e. not training) FAO billets are attache billets, owned by DIA. You have to plan WAY in advance for those, so the community has someone designated to be nominated, they get nominated, and then they blow the DIA interview or have an issue with the overseas medical screening (former SWOs aren't as good at lying to docs as former aviators). So you end up with an O-6 Korean-as-first-language down in Honduras in an O-4 billet. That obviously creates ripple effects that mean the community is always doing a significant amount of crisis detailing vice deliberate detailing.

 

[sevenhelmet]

No, it's not particularly accurate. For someone coming in as an O-4, you'll probably get sent to a staff just so that you can get a hard-ish breakout (1 of 4 is better than 1 of 1) to set you up for the O-5 board, but generally you won't just bounce from staff to staff. The ones that do are usually punks who are trying to homestead in the DC area(?!).

This is what people going into the FAO community need to know: there are two big issues with the FAO community's talent management, IMHO. #1 is that there just isn't enough talent. Great, your parents are Chinese and you grew up speaking Mandarin. Great, you were born in the Soviet Union. But how good of an officer are you? Have you ever even touched warfare? *Can you write in English?* In order to reduce time and cost to train, we're grabbing people who check the qualification blocks (foreign language, master's degree, in-country experience) who were accountants. It's silly and sad and you might end up working for an O-6 that is mind-numbingly poor at their job. #2 is that the community is matched, numbers-wise, almost exactly to billets it has to fill. There's little to no flexibility and zero transparency. So you maybe studied Mandarin for 8 years and wrote your doctoral dissertation on PLAN naval tactics--orders to Sierra Leone incoming! Part of this is because a lot of operational (i.e. not training) FAO billets are attache billets, owned by DIA. You have to plan WAY in advance for those, so the community has someone designated to be nominated, they get nominated, and then they blow the DIA interview or have an issue with the overseas medical screening (former SWOs aren't as good at lying to docs as former aviators). So you end up with an O-6 Korean-as-first-language down in Honduras in an O-4 billet. That obviously creates ripple effects that mean the community is always doing a significant amount of crisis detailing vice deliberate detailing.

Jeebus. That’s sure not confidence-inspiring.

 

[taxi1]

Part of this is because a lot of operational (i.e. not training) FAO billets are attache billets, owned by DIA.

i was wondering about that. I spent a bunch of time “outside the wire” on my mob and some other stuff, working closely with attaches at various embassies. Seemed like a really interesting gig.

 

[IRfly]

i was wondering about that. I spent a bunch of time “outside the wire” on my mob and some other stuff, working closely with attaches at various embassies. Seemed like a really interesting gig.

It is. I'd say that most of the attache and ODC jobs are pretty great. So if you become and do at least two tours, chances are at least one will be awesome. But it probably won't be the one you want, think you are best qualified for, or even actually ARE best qualified for.

But man, it's tough to come from an Embassy job back into the Navy. Especially when you have to deal with the Leidos-ridden IT garbage systems that the Navy uses.

 

[CorsairDriver]

At the end of the day, the bolded part above is the root cause of the pilot/experience retention issues. There's just no way around it... either the Navy changes the system to keep non-command track O-4/O-5's for their flying expertise, or they accept that they will lose a huge number of pilots after their contracts are up. Many, many of us join (or decide along the way) that they really just want to fly, not become Admirals and take constant career-building non-flying detours.

Every year, the Navy gets this information in their surveys of departing pilots, and every year they make the same decision: to accept their loss rather than change the system. If a war comes and they need all the war fighters they can get, they will change their minds, and it will be too late because all the talent will be flying for the civilian competition.

History continues to repeat itself ... I sat in the VFA-106 Ready Room as an A-7E guy getting ready to roll into the Hornet in 1990 during CINCLANT Admirals Call. Retaining non-command tracked JO's in operational TACAIR Seats was a recurring theme even back then.

 

[cfam]

It is. I'd say that most of the attache and ODC jobs are pretty great. So if you become and do at least two tours, chances are at least one will be awesome. But it probably won't be the one you want, think you are best qualified for, or even actually ARE best qualified for.

But man, it's tough to come from an Embassy job back into the Navy. Especially when you have to deal with the Leidos-ridden IT garbage systems that the Navy uses.

Couldn’t agree more. Brand new EUCOM FAO here, currently TAD off AFRICOM staff to gap fill the ODC billet in Angola. Definitely interesting work, way different pipeline than I expected. Regional detailing in the community is much more flexible than I expected coming in.

 

[IRfly]

Yeah, they’re trying to open up cross-AOR detailing more. But that leads to the very valid question: if expertise in a specific region isn’t necessary to be successful in a tour, then why do we need a whole separate community of regional experts?

 

[sevenhelmet]

Yeah, they’re trying to open up cross-AOR detailing more. But that leads to the very valid question: if expertise in a specific region isn’t necessary to be successful in a tour, then why do we need a whole separate community of regional experts?

Not bad, but maybe that’s the wrong question. I would counter with, “If expertise in a specific region is being recruited and/or already exists within the community, why not maximize its application?”

 

[CommodoreMid]

Couldn’t agree more. Brand new EUCOM FAO here, currently TAD off AFRICOM staff to gap fill the ODC billet in Angola. Definitely interesting work, way different pipeline than I expected. Regional detailing in the community is much more flexible than I expected coming in.

On the FAO education piece really intrigued how the Navy does it compared to the Army. From what y’all are saying sounds like we kinda suck. Only reason I’m curious is because here on my pol mil scholarship at SAIS I can’t swing a dead cat without hitting several Army FAOs in the face.

 

[Brett327]

On the FAO education piece really intrigued how the Navy does it compared to the Army. From what y’all are saying sounds like we kinda suck. Only reason I’m curious is because here on my pol mil scholarship at SAIS I can’t swing a dead cat without hitting several Army FAOs in the face.

When I was on the Joint Staff, the Army FAOs were ubiquitous around the J5... also the Army "Strategists."

 

[gparks1989]

On the FAO education piece really intrigued how the Navy does it compared to the Army. From what y’all are saying sounds like we kinda suck. Only reason I’m curious is because here on my pol mil scholarship at SAIS I can’t swing a dead cat without hitting several Army FAOs in the face.

I believe straight to NPS, at least that's according to the BUPERS page. I also believe the Army has a much more well oiled FAO machine. I was also surprised at how many FAOs there are in the MIPP.

 

[gparks1989]

Back in my day, CAGs and CAG LSOs flew during their sea tours. I knew a winged flight surgeon (single anchor) that flew and heard that some CV skippers flew on cruise. Yet Shooters, Handlers, and Hangar Deck Officers did not. Is this still the case? If the Navy is seriously considering a change as big as winging SNAs before they've even seen a boat, perhaps they could revisit this area too.

Also, there was once an emphasis in the Training Command on weeding out the weaker players earlier in the syllabus rather than later. Still, there was the occasional SNA who failed to qual at the boat in T-2s. It's going to be ugly if a newly winged aviator can't keep the ball centered in the RAG after a couple of years of flight training.

That's still mostly the case today. I haven't met an actual winged flight surgeon, although I'm sure there are one or two floating around. Never heard of a boat skipper flying, but that's because the (absolutely god awful but maybe rewarding?) CVN skipper pipeline is a lengthy one that takes you out of the cockpit for a while.

My experience is rapidly expiring, but the VTs still generally do a good job weeding people out. It's an imperfect system but I don't think one can be designed any better.

And if you've never flown with the technology that is powering the changes referenced in those articles, it's really hard to wrap one's mind around removing the boat from the VT syllabus but it makes sense. The arguments against it are getting weaker by the day. I loved flying around the boat, being a paddles, and knowing I'm part of a small group of carrier based naval aviators. That being said, boat ops is admin and we should rightfully be pushing it toward being practically an afterthought. Working in ops and seeing how much time FCLPs took away from tactical training was eye opening and really solidified my perspective.

 

[gparks1989]

Not bad, but maybe that’s the wrong question. I would counter with, “If expertise in a specific region is being recruited and/or already exists within the community, why not maximize its application?”

Generally the USG's approach to positions that require area expertise - namely thinking of the State Department here - recruit for it, but also want generalists. So a Chinese speaker may end up in Guatemala, for example.

What's odd about the Navy's FAO program is that you get designated for a certain AOR, so the Chinese speaker may never touch a position that leverages that expertise. That seems odd to me. But then again, it's the Navy!

 

[IRfly]

Not bad, but maybe that’s the wrong question. I would counter with, “If expertise in a specific region is being recruited and/or already exists within the community, why not maximize its application?”

The answer is that sometimes (rarely) we do, and when we don't it's mostly because of competitiveness, career milestones, and the way we assign billets. If you're a EUCOM FAO and you need your next billet to be SDO/DATT, welp, there are only a handful of SDO/DATT billets in EUCOM for Navy (they're assigned by service). So you could end up doing your SDO/DATT tour in Southcom. I'm not sure how it is right now, but in the past we had the tendency to pick up senior-ish O-3s with weak records at lateral transfer boards (aviators, because the ones with strong records tended to stay flying), so the main priority was not fit/fill or maximizing utilization, but trying to get them healthy for the next board.

On the FAO education piece really intrigued how the Navy does it compared to the Army. From what y’all are saying sounds like we kinda suck. Only reason I’m curious is because here on my pol mil scholarship at SAIS I can’t swing a dead cat without hitting several Army FAOs in the face.

Army: Selected for FAO, 4-year training pipeline including Masters degree (usually at high-level civilian institution like SAIS, Harvard, Tufts, etc), core regional language study, and usually 18-ish months in-region training (IRT) which, for EUCOM guys, can include a few months at the Marshall Center and then spending the rest in 3-6 month blocks at different embassies in the region. Maybe a few months at COCOM too. End result is a fully-qualified FAO ready for just about any billet.

Navy: Try to select FAOs who already have qualified with language, already have masters (NWC counts), and already have been assigned somewhere overseas so that they don't require time and $$ to train to full qualification. If no masters, then usually NPS is the first stop to get that check in the box. There are lots of Embassy (ODC, some attache) O-4 billets for AFRICOM, CENTCOM, SOUTHCOM. EUCOM, not so much. PACOM has some. So EUCOM and PACOM, good chance you'll head to a staff unless you know somebody. EUCOM will probably be CNE so that you can also check that "overseas" box.

I had been a "fully qualified FAO" for about 4 years when I arrived to my embassy assignment at the same time as an Army O-4 FAO. He was MILES ahead of me. Why? At least partly because he had worked for 6-9 months in that same embassy as an IRT guy.

Generally the USG's approach to positions that require area expertise - namely thinking of the State Department here - recruit for it, but also want generalists. So a Chinese speaker may end up in Guatemala, for example.

What's odd about the Navy's FAO program is that you get designated for a certain AOR, so the Chinese speaker may never touch a position that leverages that expertise. That seems odd to me. But then again, it's the Navy!

The vibe I got from State folks was that "regional" expertise isn't nearly as important as functional expertise. If you're a China specialist with State, you can probably expect to spend your career in a cubicle in DC pulling in your ~$170k/year. We have those same guys/gals at DIA and ONI. But knowing SOMETHING helps...

Dude...you have no idea on the bolded. I don't want to get too specific, so I won't. But suffice it to say, because it's the Navy, we have admirals who would rather be briefed BS by a random O-6 than get the straight dope from a LCDR.

 

[Brett327]

Never heard of a boat skipper flying,

JR Haley used to fly (day only) when he was the CO of TR, and he would manage to make it to Whidbey for a few FCLPs. I was, more often than not, his boat ECMO. Great dude, but that whole experience probably took a year or two off of my life expectancy. Dude liked to op-check the stall warning horn in the Prowler at the 90. ?