• Please take a moment and update your account profile. If you have an updated account profile with basic information on why you are on Air Warriors it will help other people respond to your posts. How do you update your profile you ask?

    Go here:

    Edit Account Details and Profile

Naval Aviator Command

Jim123

DD-214 in hand and I'm gonna party like it's 1998
pilot
They’re still out there. There was a guy a few years ago that didn’t like that he got an exped Growler squadron (vs CVW squadron) out of the RAG. He complained pretty emphatically to the RAG CO ( who himself was an exped CO), then when he didn’t like his CO’s answer, went VFR direct to the CDRE.

Cue The Rolling Stones.
"What a draaaaag it is getting ooooold..."

(I knew which song you really meant.)



Wait, that song is for the other thread.
 

Brett327

Well-Known Member
None
Super Moderator
Contributor
How can you be mad about getting exped growlers out of the rag though?
I can see going through all the effort of CQing, then going exped as a bit of a letdown if you're really into the boat. I did exped my first tour and had a blast. Honestly, it wasn't my first choice, but it was a great tour and I've had plenty of time underway since my JO tour. Exped Growlers continue to do some pretty cool deployments and are accumulating green ink in their logbooks as we speak.
 

IRfly

Registered User
None
I’m in the process of becoming a Naval Aviator. I’ve heard that most officers are in command of 10-20 troops right out of OCS. Is this true of aviators? What type of command opportunities can an Aviator expect to encounter over his career?

In the Navy you'll usually be about 16 years before you are given the chance for command-at-sea, including in aviation (only exceptions I know of are SWO minesweeper types). This is different from, say, the Army helo squadrons that are commanded by O-3 captains who own the birds and have NJP authority over their personnel. But no one that I know of in any service has command of anyone right out of OCS.

Maybe you're asking whether you'll be assigned to lead people, in which case the answer is "after flight school," which could take up to four years when I went through. When you get to your first squadron you'll get a "ground job" in admin or maintenance or something and lead the sailors working in that division/shop. But your first and most important job will be learning to master flying and employing your weapons platform.
In my community (P-3s) it was very clear: if you were a rockstar in getting qualified and flying but sucked at your ground job, you were a rockstar.
If you sucked at getting qualified and flying but were a rockstar in your ground job, you sucked.

Obviously you want to try to do everything well, but priorities. YMMV.
 

Jim123

DD-214 in hand and I'm gonna party like it's 1998
pilot
She was still in my wardroom when that email went out. One of our LDOs didn't read closely who it was and re-forwarded to the ship's wardroom distro with the comment "Entertaining reading."

Good times...
There are a lot of ways to get good mentoring done, even if unintentional.
 

nittany03

Recovering NFO. Herder of Programmers.
pilot
None
Super Moderator
Contributor
She was still in my wardroom when that email went out. One of our LDOs didn't read closely who it was and re-forwarded to the ship's wardroom distro with the comment "Entertaining reading."

Good times...
#Awkward . . .
 

WhiskeySierra6

Well-Known Member
pilot
They’re still out there. There was a guy a few years ago that didn’t like that he got an exped Growler squadron (vs CVW squadron) out of the RAG. He complained pretty emphatically to the RAG CO ( who himself was an exped CO), then when he didn’t like his CO’s answer, went VFR direct to the CDRE.

Cue The Rolling Stones.

Update: He's in my squadron and he's doing quite well.
 

Austin-Powers

Powers By Name, Powers By Reputation
I can see going through all the effort of CQing, then going exped as a bit of a letdown if you're really into the boat. I did exped my first tour and had a blast. Honestly, it wasn't my first choice, but it was a great tour and I've had plenty of time underway since my JO tour. Exped Growlers continue to do some pretty cool deployments and are accumulating green ink in their logbooks as we speak.

Forgive my ignorance, but what does it mean to be expeditionary in the Navy?
 

cfam

Well-Known Member
None
Super Moderator
Contributor
Forgive my ignorance, but what does it mean to be expeditionary in the Navy?
In the Growler community we have four squadrons (soon to be five if I remember correctly) that only do land based deployments (aka the expeditionary squadrons). They’re assigned to the Electronic Attack wing instead of being in airwings like the carrier based squadrons.
 

RobLyman

- hawk Pilot
pilot
None
In the Navy you'll usually be about 16 years before you are given the chance for command-at-sea, including in aviation (only exceptions I know of are SWO minesweeper types). This is different from, say, the Army helo squadrons company that are commanded by O-3 captains (and also O-4 majors, and m#$%f$^$^ CW4s) who own the birds and have NJP authority over their personnel. But no one that I know of in any service has command of anyone right out of OCS.

Maybe you're asking whether you'll be assigned to lead people, in which case the answer is "after flight school," which could take up to four years when I went through. When you get to your first squadron you'll get a "ground job" in admin or maintenance or something and lead the sailors working in that division/shop. But your first and most important job will be learning to master flying and employing your weapons platform.
In my community (P-3s) it was very clear: if you were a rockstar in getting qualified and flying but sucked at your ground job, you were a rockstar.
If you sucked at getting qualified and flying but were a rockstar in your ground job, you sucked.

Obviously you want to try to do everything well, but priorities. YMMV.
Oh yeah, don't forget the CW5s who command these things.
 

Attachments

  • ArmyShip.jpg
    ArmyShip.jpg
    321.8 KB · Views: 36

nittany03

Recovering NFO. Herder of Programmers.
pilot
None
Super Moderator
Contributor
Oh yeah, don't forget the CW5s who command these things.
I once worked with a an Army CW2 who was amused that Navy ships were commanded by O-5s and O-6s, and Army ships were commanded by CW5s. Isn't the Army getting out of that game though?

(It's also entertaining that the ship in that photo appears to be randomly carrying someone's POV for whatever reason)
 
Top