What does NFO (naval flight officer NOT non-flying officer or No F****** Option as some would say) training consist off? I know that NFOs and Pilots start off with the same training. At what point do their paths diverge and what is NFO training like after that point? Pilots often begin each phase of training with another pilot in the backseat, but an NFO can't have another NFO behind them in a 3rd seat! Another particular question after reading Air Warriors (great book) a primary theme is the competition in flight school is high because everyone wants to get their pick of aircraft. Well from what I've been told Marine NFOs only fly in the Prowler and the Hornet. Do you know what % of NFO get assigned to each? Thanks for your help in advance.
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NFO training
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vballindaytona
Registered User
hey michael, when you say ... quote: And for you SNA wannabes don't you mean....for US sna wannabes, or did you get your slot overnight w/out telling us 
jonathan
jonathan
Dave Shutter
Registered User
I remember that book, I saw it a few years ago and it showed advanced jet student landing TA-4J's on the Lexington training carrier, and how your first tour could be as an A-7 pilot on the Midway. Dated stuff then but even more so now. Good reference material but for a more current outline try the latest issue of COMBAT AIRCRAFT, the cover is a Hornet going off the bow with the title logo in an American flag design. There's a several page article covering flight training from start to finish, including NFO and JSUPT trianing.
Edited by - Dave Shutter on 04/15/2002 15:22:12
Edited by - Dave Shutter on 04/15/2002 15:22:12
What exactly do you want to know about NFO training? You start out at API, just like all pilots, but when the pilots go away to primary at Whiting, Corpus, Vance or Moody, you'll stay in Pcola. You'll do primary with either VT-4 or VT-10 flying, as of now, T-34's for about 69 days. Then about 30% of Navy FO's will go to Randolf AFB for NAV training and go P-3's, EP-3's or E-6's, which should take about 4-5 months. Then you're winged and you'll go to your RAG/FRS. Or, after primary, you'll stay in Pcola and stay for intermediate in VT-4 or -10. That's going to be about 71 days where you'll continue to fly, but now you're getting ready for TACAIR planes. After 71 days, the E-2 guys will break off and go to Norfolk/Oceanna NAS to do their training while the jet NFO's will stay in Pensacola for another 70 days in VT-86 to do Strike or Strike/Figher training. The strike guys will go Prowlers, about 40%, the strike/fighter guys will go to (very few now) F-14's and most to F/A-18F's. That's about 20 percent. So the other 10 percent went E-2's. Then after your time at pensacola, you'll go to SERE, then to the RAG/FRS. (Oceanna for F-14's, Lemore, CA for F/A-18's, Whidbey Island for EA-6B's).
As for Marines, it's ABOUT 50/50 prolwers, hornets, but I wouldn't recommend this for several reasons. Mostly because the marines flying two-seater hornets, used to fly one-seaters and are used to doing things on their own. A lot of the systems in the D model are redundant. A marine D driver once told me, "a WSO [18 NFO] who knows when to speak up is worth his weight in gold, but sometimes they don't know when to shut-up." If you want to walk that fine line, ooh-rah, but Tomcat crews work together as a team and the pilot is dependant on the RIO. The squadron I was with this past summer, there was no anymosity between pilots and NFO's, but the Marines, it showed through a lot.
As for who do you fly with in the backseat in training, it will be either an NFO who has his flight instructor qual or it will be with a pilot, but your chart work and other stuff you'll have to worry about will be taught on the ground by other NFO's.
As for the No Future on the Outside and all that stuff that they say about NFO's, it's an awesome job. You'll have a sweet job 35,000 feet in the air, and it's nice to have a pilot give you a ride to work all the time.
As for Marines, it's ABOUT 50/50 prolwers, hornets, but I wouldn't recommend this for several reasons. Mostly because the marines flying two-seater hornets, used to fly one-seaters and are used to doing things on their own. A lot of the systems in the D model are redundant. A marine D driver once told me, "a WSO [18 NFO] who knows when to speak up is worth his weight in gold, but sometimes they don't know when to shut-up." If you want to walk that fine line, ooh-rah, but Tomcat crews work together as a team and the pilot is dependant on the RIO. The squadron I was with this past summer, there was no anymosity between pilots and NFO's, but the Marines, it showed through a lot.
As for who do you fly with in the backseat in training, it will be either an NFO who has his flight instructor qual or it will be with a pilot, but your chart work and other stuff you'll have to worry about will be taught on the ground by other NFO's.
As for the No Future on the Outside and all that stuff that they say about NFO's, it's an awesome job. You'll have a sweet job 35,000 feet in the air, and it's nice to have a pilot give you a ride to work all the time.
MVS26,
What are some possibilities on the outside for NFO's? I know they can be flight engineers for commercial airlines, but aren't most airplanes going to the two person flight crew? If you are a flight engineer for a civilian airline do you have an option at the right seat (first officer) after some time or are you permanantly an engineer? Thanks for any advice.
Dan
What are some possibilities on the outside for NFO's? I know they can be flight engineers for commercial airlines, but aren't most airplanes going to the two person flight crew? If you are a flight engineer for a civilian airline do you have an option at the right seat (first officer) after some time or are you permanantly an engineer? Thanks for any advice.
Dan
vballindaytona
Registered User
yall two were meant for each other.
jonathan
jonathan
"Mostly because the marines flying two-seater hornets, used to fly one-seaters and are used to doing things on their own. A lot of the systems in the D model are redundant."
I'm sure I know much less than most on here about Navy and Marine aviation, and I don't mean to sound impertinent, but you make it sound like the NFO on Marine hornets is a 5th wheel. If he is excess baggage who isn't doing anything the pilot can't do himself, I don't see why the Corps would spend all that time and money training him just to add extra weight to the aircaft.
I guess this goes towards my original question about NFO training- What do NFOs DO?
What is different about the Tomcat and the Hornet that makes the NFO indespensible in one and in the way on the other?
I'm sure I know much less than most on here about Navy and Marine aviation, and I don't mean to sound impertinent, but you make it sound like the NFO on Marine hornets is a 5th wheel. If he is excess baggage who isn't doing anything the pilot can't do himself, I don't see why the Corps would spend all that time and money training him just to add extra weight to the aircaft.
I guess this goes towards my original question about NFO training- What do NFOs DO?
What is different about the Tomcat and the Hornet that makes the NFO indespensible in one and in the way on the other?
As for opportunities on the outside for NFO's, there aren't really any in the airlines as far as I'm aware. The S-3 guys do get stick time because the S-3 does have two sticks, so I have heard of some NFOs from that platform going to the airlines, but everyone else gets involved with Raytheon and other engineering companies developing systems that would have made their jobs easier. So what do they DO? Depends on the aircraft. Since the group seems to be more interested in fighters, I'll talk about those. If you wanna know about Prowlers or Orions, I can give you an idea there, too, but as for fighters and strike/fighters the Tomcat was built around an NFO. From the A models, still flown by a couple squadrons, to the D's they've always been a two-seater aircraft. Basically, in the Cold War, the Russians were pumping out MiGs that were pretty amazing aircraft. They're ability to hang with our jets in air combat maneuvering was a little too good for comfort, so we made this big missile that would hit them before we ever visually saw them. We called the missile a Phoenix, which is still only carried by the Tomcat. Now to fire it, we needed a big radar to cover the huge range of this missile. This is where the Radar Intercept Officer comes in. Though we had RIOs in the Phantoms, they just became a lot more important. So we had these RIOs in charge of firing these missiles, so we needed a pilot to get them there. Long story short, the pilot was almost an afterthought on the Tomcat. On the Hornet, it was the other way around. We built the F/A-18A's as a one seater, then the B's as a two-seater to train them, then the C's as a single seater that was better than the A's. Then came the D's with a backseat. Second long story short, the NFO was the afterthought. And I've heard from Marine NFO's that sometimes you do feel like that 5th wheel because you were an afterhtought and like Matt said if you have a Marine pilot who's only flown two seaters, it's not bad, but if he's flown single seaters before, it's not fun for the FO. So what do they do? Well, a Marine Hornet driver will usually refer to himself as a "fighter pilot." I don't know why, they just do. The strike part of the job never sounded to exciting for them, I guess. So what some Marine D drivers told me in Iwakuni was that they don't mind having a guy in the backseat running the strike while they look out for bad guys in the air or SAMs or AAA. The way it sounded to me was that those FO's were, at worst, fifth wheels and, at best, a convenience. This is why I chose to go Navy FO. As for the new Navy 18F FO's, well, I've been told that the Navy will only have Tomcat guys transition to the F. No offense Matt, but I don't want to sit in the backseat of someone who's used to doing it by himself. And I'm sure you don't want me back there offering my two cents every time you go to make a turn. Therefore, the F guys will get a sense of team and the FOs will operate much like the Tomcat RIOs do. Operating radar and attacking ground targets and taking pictures with FLIR and other reconnaisance stuff. So that is what NFO's do in the strike/fighters. They are usually in charge of the strike part. And one more thing about the pipeline, that total of 210 days was something I was told a couple weeks ago who is pretty optimistic about it. In practice, it'll probably take a year to year and a half. Any other FO questions, I'll be here.
Very informative post, mvs. I really like this website, but nobody talks about nfo's that much so any insight into the area is pretty valuable. Have you decided which aircraft you would prefer? I don't know a lot of detail about each platform so I haven't decided yet. I'm sure I would be happy with whatever I get and that each has its own benefits. Is any one platform more valuable than another as far as career advancement goes? If you could share what you know about the Prowler and Orion it would be much appreciated.
Dave Shutter
Registered User
Read and article the other day, forget where, but they described the different variants. AF get's the A, basic model with conventional landing gear. USMC gets the B with the CG thruster and the variable nozzle on the rear and the Navy gets the C with reinforced landing gear, airframe and of course the tailhook. I don't see how with the added weight but it said the C will be more powerful then the other two.
I'm not sure which platform I want. For the reasons I talked about in my last post, I would like to get on the tail-end of the Tomcats before they go away, but they keep waivering on the date they're going to stop taking new RIO's and pilots. I would then like to get into the Super Hornets, but like you said, I'll like what ever I get. Not a whole lot of SNA's and SNFO's go to Pensacola with dreams of flying E-2's, but the ones that get them love it. Though I'm leaning toward the strike/fighters, P-3's have a lot to offer as well. For starters, their NFO's are winged faster. About a year(API and Primary in Pcola and NAV training at Randolf AFB in San Antonio, TX.) Then after the Orion RAG in Jacksonville, you'll go to places like Maine (which I hear is the best kept secret in the navy, it's so nice up there), or Whidbey Island or Jax or Pearl Harbor. That's for P-3's. EP-3's (think plane down in China) will either go to Rota, Spain or to Whidbey Island, WA. Both have different missions. P-3's were submarine hunters. That's abou 50% of their mission now. They do a lot of counter-drug stuff in the Caribbean, and now with some new very sweet radars, they do tactical reconnaisance. I believe it was the Washington Times that reported that we were using them over in Afghanistan as such. Now they're starting to flow into the role of the EP-3, which is always on reconnaisance. We only have two squadrons of these things in the world, so their deployment cycles are on more than they are off and aren't the typical 6 months on 12 off. EP-3's are incredibly sophisticated recon planes, with a pretty impressive characteristic: every time they go up they are operational. That's something that any pilot or NFO would like to say about their platform, but the fact is that pretty much all other aircraft train A LOT. The EP-3 is always performing real-world operations, so that's pretty cool. As an NFO on there, you'll play with some pretty cool toys. However, on the P-3, you'll start out at a navigator/communicator. This job, from what I hear.... sucks. BUT! When you get qualed in that and a new NFO comes up through the pipeline to the squadron, you'll get moved up to Tactical Officer. Here you get to play with some pretty sweet toys as well. They're currently upgrading P-3's to give them all this anti-surface capability, so they're getting cooler and cooler. They're shooting missiles now. That's right, the Orion can perform strike. The SLAM-ER (Stand-Off Land Attack Missile - Extended Range) allows the P-3 to put a guided missile on target without getting itself into a threat envelope, so that's just cool. Not to mention that P-3 guys don't go to the boat, they get Per Diem (lots of money on deployment) and deploy to cool places. I could go on about the Orion, but I'll stop there.
The Prowler is the one community where the NFO's are so far from being the fifth wheel, it's not even funny. Think about it, it's a four seater aircraft with one pilot. The pilots are already outnumbered 3-1. The front seat NFO will serve as a navigator. While this is not the position of choice among P-3 NFO's, it is with the Prowler guys 'cause they get a good view. There is no view forward from the back seat of a Prowler. Your equipment goes from floor to ceiling, but you'll get a view to the side and above. The two guys in the backseat are called ECMO's (Electronics Counter-Measure Officers). These guys do stand-off jamming so that the strike/fighters can go in and do their strike without much of a SAM threat, because those radars should be inoperable thanks to the jamming capabilities of the Prowler. However, the Prowler has nothing to protect itself with. An 18 or 14 or two will usually escort it, because the only missile the Prowler carries is HARM (high-speed anti-radiation missile). This is pretty cool. It's completely fire-and-forget. It will find the source of a radar pulse, and attack it. Even if the source is turned off, the missile will go to the last known origin of the radar. So, it's an awesome platform to have, not a bad one to be an NFO in, though it can get boring sometimes, as far as I understand it. This is because the capabilities that you have are so huge, you can't really test them all that much without shutting down communications all over where ever you're training.
Okay... Oh, career. If you're interested in a career, get into P-3's or F/A-18F's. The Tomcats are going away, though they'll transition into the 18, it's nice to get in on the bottom floor. EA-6's, by the time we're ready for command, it might be a good community for that, but right now, it's tough. When we got rid of the A-6 (for whatever reason we did), a whole lot of LT's got moved into the Prowler and some just kind of got lost in the mix and left the navy. Now there's tons of 0-4's in the community trying to make it, but it's kind of overflowed. There's also a general feeling in the Navy the we need to streamline aircraft. As we went from F-14's and A-6's to F/A-18's and EA-6's, we're starting to give aircraft multiroles. This is good for several reasons, one being that it makes maintenance a heck of a lot easier. So the word on the street now is that they're looking into making an F/A-18G, the Growler to replace the EA-6. We'll see if that happens, but even from within the community members are saying that it's a job that could be done by two people with today's technology. The E-2 will be around for a while to, and they're upgrading its systems as we speak as well. Here's some good news about Super Hornets for NFO's. They're getting rid of the S-3, so we're going to be out a tanker. F/A-18E's are not currently slated to take over the tanking role. This is a pilot-only aircraft, so we won't waste any more of the FO's time tanking. So the planes that have the most benefits and hold for a promising future are the P-3s and Super Hornets. Oh, I know there's talk about changing out the P-3 and fixing up a 737 to do the same mission, but this is only a change in aircraft, not in the community. So your job is pretty solid there. Pilots tend to want to get out of P-3's and into the airlines (the job is more exciting for FO's than pilots), so NFO's have a great shot at command in that community. Okay, I think that's enough for now.
pdt, where are you in the pipeline, you started last July?
The Prowler is the one community where the NFO's are so far from being the fifth wheel, it's not even funny. Think about it, it's a four seater aircraft with one pilot. The pilots are already outnumbered 3-1. The front seat NFO will serve as a navigator. While this is not the position of choice among P-3 NFO's, it is with the Prowler guys 'cause they get a good view. There is no view forward from the back seat of a Prowler. Your equipment goes from floor to ceiling, but you'll get a view to the side and above. The two guys in the backseat are called ECMO's (Electronics Counter-Measure Officers). These guys do stand-off jamming so that the strike/fighters can go in and do their strike without much of a SAM threat, because those radars should be inoperable thanks to the jamming capabilities of the Prowler. However, the Prowler has nothing to protect itself with. An 18 or 14 or two will usually escort it, because the only missile the Prowler carries is HARM (high-speed anti-radiation missile). This is pretty cool. It's completely fire-and-forget. It will find the source of a radar pulse, and attack it. Even if the source is turned off, the missile will go to the last known origin of the radar. So, it's an awesome platform to have, not a bad one to be an NFO in, though it can get boring sometimes, as far as I understand it. This is because the capabilities that you have are so huge, you can't really test them all that much without shutting down communications all over where ever you're training.
Okay... Oh, career. If you're interested in a career, get into P-3's or F/A-18F's. The Tomcats are going away, though they'll transition into the 18, it's nice to get in on the bottom floor. EA-6's, by the time we're ready for command, it might be a good community for that, but right now, it's tough. When we got rid of the A-6 (for whatever reason we did), a whole lot of LT's got moved into the Prowler and some just kind of got lost in the mix and left the navy. Now there's tons of 0-4's in the community trying to make it, but it's kind of overflowed. There's also a general feeling in the Navy the we need to streamline aircraft. As we went from F-14's and A-6's to F/A-18's and EA-6's, we're starting to give aircraft multiroles. This is good for several reasons, one being that it makes maintenance a heck of a lot easier. So the word on the street now is that they're looking into making an F/A-18G, the Growler to replace the EA-6. We'll see if that happens, but even from within the community members are saying that it's a job that could be done by two people with today's technology. The E-2 will be around for a while to, and they're upgrading its systems as we speak as well. Here's some good news about Super Hornets for NFO's. They're getting rid of the S-3, so we're going to be out a tanker. F/A-18E's are not currently slated to take over the tanking role. This is a pilot-only aircraft, so we won't waste any more of the FO's time tanking. So the planes that have the most benefits and hold for a promising future are the P-3s and Super Hornets. Oh, I know there's talk about changing out the P-3 and fixing up a 737 to do the same mission, but this is only a change in aircraft, not in the community. So your job is pretty solid there. Pilots tend to want to get out of P-3's and into the airlines (the job is more exciting for FO's than pilots), so NFO's have a great shot at command in that community. Okay, I think that's enough for now.
pdt, where are you in the pipeline, you started last July?
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