USAF Enlisted Pilots, The Right Stuff, Stolen Bikes, AIC, and SWO pipe dreams.

[fc2spyguy]

Finally, where do you get that 'our system is fucked'?! There is always room for improvement as we often debate here but Naval Aviation as a whole does its job pretty well.

When the cjcs sits in front of congress and tells them that they wouldn’t be able to guarantee a victory against an equal aggressor. That’s where my assessment comes in.

Plainly put, we don’t field our best team in the air the way we manage our personnel. As I see it. There’s also a material condition, but that’s a Congressional thing that’s been screwing us for years. I didn’t realize it has been so long on a CR.

Oh, also, the whole studying thing. I have a hard time looking at the small sample of people that they got for the FWO program and taking generalizations from it. Additionally, even if there is a higher attrition rate it's pretty simple, have more selections to cover the attrition.

 

[Uncle Fester]

I was an instructor when the FWOs first started coming through Pensacola. There was for obvious reasons a lot of ‘higher’ interest in their performance. Though as @fc2spyguy mentioned it was a very small group, overall their performance was identical to the other prior-enlisted officers. I would not say it’s fair to say the Warrants ‘struggled’; rather, that they tended to struggle in the same way your typical O-1E struggled, and for the same reasons. Older, out of formal full-time schooling for a while, spouse/kids-type distractions at home, etc. Feedback I’ve seen is that they also fared basically the same out in the Fleet as other prior-enlisted dudes.

Others have touched on it, but bottom line is in order to properly make operational use of flying Warrants or some other kind of LDO, O-4-for-life, whatever, Navy Air would have to pretty fundamentally restructure itself. That’s a hard sell.

The Reserves have the structure to allow the Navy to keep their saltier dudes around and in the cockpit, but it’s under-utilized. I can see several ways the Reserves could be more efficiently used, but they all cost money. And right now Big Navy doesn’t have extra investment capital lying around. Or at least, what money they do have, they’re loath to spend on ‘goddamned part-timers’.

It's a completely different kind of flying altogether.

 

[pilot_man]

Every single pilot could be replaced with a warrant and we would be better, tactically, for it. Figuring out the leadership role would be something you would have to figure out. It doesn't require a college degree to do what we do in the cockpit, anyone who thinks it does is blowing smoke up their own ass, and that of their buddies as they wax poetically about how awesome they are.

I agree that we need options for keeping guys in their aircraft, but I don't think the WO is the solution for many communities.

I wholeheartedly disagree that you could replace every pilot with a warrant. Hopefully you agree that not everyone can be a Naval Aviator. It takes some level of intelligence, dedicated work ethic, hand-eye coordination, expeditious decision making ability, and the capacity to multi task while keeping SA to a multitude of things. A college degree shows that you are at least somewhat competent in the first two categories. Are there outliers? Sure. But showing that you can focus long enough to get a 4 year degree is a good indicator that you can handle the stresses and workloads of flight school, and the fleet.

The task loading put on an aviator acting as the strike lead for an Airwing strike is a lot different than on a guy whose job is to take off from point A and then go land at point B. There might be areas where the warrants would work, but there are also areas where it definitely would not.

 

[Jim123]

showing that you can focus long enough to get a 4 year degree is a good indicator that you can handle the stresses and workloads of flight school, and the fleet.

The funny thing about a four year degree is it's really only an obstacle in time commitment (whether that's prior E getting a degree on active duty... or someone off civvy street going to school while holding down a full time job). Academically, yeah not so much when the bar for flight school is any "four year degree" with decent grades. That has included any U Phoenix/Mickey Mouse degree for many years. When someone fails a test in API, I'm glad people like Fester are there help them get back on track (that's a good thing). When guys repeatedly fail those tests I think about college courses in basket weaving and the "academic rigor" in college sports. And like pilot_man says, there are books and reading and stuff in the fleet too!

We don't need to completely throw away the mandatory degree requirement. On the other hand, I like radar's point about the mandatory requirement to take two year break from play, so you can sell peanuts for two years, and then going back to play ball after a quick turn through spring training.

 

[hscs]

For the whole career path thing on the helo side - I believe that it all centers around the major command at sea precept. In order for someone to be eligible, you must have an OOD / CDO (U/W) letter. The only way for the exped types to do this is a disassociated sea tour. Again, asinine that we decide who we want to put in the tank for major command 10 years down the road by picking and choosing who goes to a 'coveted' boat job. Performance in a CO tour is what matters - not a piece of paper that says you can drive a boat.

For the W5 tactical expert - yes those folks have a lot of experience, but from my experience - they can get a package to / from a target, but the W5s were much weaker than O3/4 Company Commanders in terms of dealing with friction and ROE. I think they would struggle with complicated ROE situations like the most recent Syrian shootdown, Lybian MiGs in the '80s, or small boat attack from the IRGCN.

As for reserves - the last 16 years has changed the model. Having reservists around as the backstop for brain drain worked before 2001 - worked very well in HCS-4/5. Unfortunately, constant mobilizations, rising seniority of the cadre, and a lack of reserve affiliations has decimated that population. Even the SELRES can't stay in a squadron forever - you only have so many O5 billets and only so many over-grade waivers from CNAFR. FTS is not much better than Active Duty because they have their own 'disassociated tour'. The FTS side of PERS is constantly trying to send FTS aviators to NOSCs on DIFDEN orders.

 

[Python]

https://www.airforcetimes.com/news/...s-down-possibility-of-enlisted-combat-pilots/

Never mind.

 

[RobLyman]

Some of what you all have said about flying warrants is correct, but a lot is way off base and rooted in some poor assumptions. Where do I start? I think it is fair to say that assumptions on why warrants can't do what RLOs can do are mostly BS. But that's OK. You don't have the extensive experience in the Army. What I see here is limited personal experience being applied broad brushed across another service and branch to fill in the knowledge gap.

The flying warrant can and does work in the Army because the Army embraces the role of the warrant in a specific way. It could work in the Navy, with some significant changes in the way the Navy utilizes their warrants. Don't fool yourself into thinking the FWO program failed in the Navy because warrants are somehow inferior or "can't" do the things you can do as commissioned officers. You have to consider the strengths and weaknesses of your people and develop them in a way to optimize their contribution to the organization. The Navy didn't do that for the FWO program. Thus it failed.

 

[fc2spyguy]

I agree that we need options for keeping guys in their aircraft, but I don't think the WO is the solution for many communities.

I wholeheartedly disagree that you could replace every pilot with a warrant. Hopefully you agree that not everyone can be a Naval Aviator. It takes some level of intelligence, dedicated work ethic, hand-eye coordination, expeditious decision making ability, and the capacity to multi task while keeping SA to a multitude of things. A college degree shows that you are at least somewhat competent in the first two categories. Are there outliers? Sure. But showing that you can focus long enough to get a 4 year degree is a good indicator that you can handle the stresses and workloads of flight school, and the fleet.

I would also say that not everyone can be a FWO, that's why there would be a process to decide who we'd take. I'm saying that you have a cadre of FWOs and you're not going to see a degradation in the end product, in fact it would likely be an improvement overall by keeping tactically proficient people in the aircraft instead of moving them up or out.

The task loading put on an aviator acting as the strike lead for an Airwing strike is a lot different than on a guy whose job is to take off from point A and then go land at point B. There might be areas where the warrants would work, but there are also areas where it definitely would not.

Were you taught strike lead during college? If so I would have been interested in that four year degree program, may have gotten jets then! But I digress. My point being is that is OJT and decisions on who is a strike lead is made from a pool of available candidates. I would wager that with a pool of FWOs you would certainly be able to find those capable of being a strike lead.

For the W5 tactical expert - yes those folks have a lot of experience, but from my experience - they can get a package to / from a target, but the W5s were much weaker than O3/4 Company Commanders in terms of dealing with friction and ROE. I think they would struggle with complicated ROE situations like the most recent Syrian shootdown, Lybian MiGs in the '80s, or small boat attack from the IRGCN.

I disagree here as well. People perform in the roles they're placed in. If you don't stress/train to something, then you're going to get a subpar product when faced with a specific situation. Give them the training and experience and I would wager they'd do just as well. Again, ROE isn't taught in most schools. We cultivate people and there's definitely a reason we have URL officers. I just don't think they all need to be URL.

 

[SynixMan]

The whole idea of FWOs, insofar as how we created them, was not very well thought out. Leadership still remembers the Flying LDOs and made sure that wasn't going to happen again. That's not meant to be a shot at the FWOs, I know many and they were all good dudes. But creating a separate class of flyers that compete for the same limited first tour resources (quals/hours/jobs) was bound to lead to friction and hard decisions for leadership. We should've made FWO an option for proven first tour flyers, but that recreates flying LDOs with a different name. What's old is new again?

 

[Swanee]

On the other hand, I like radar's point about the mandatory requirement to take two year break from play, so you can sell peanuts for two years, and then going back to play ball after a quick turn through spring training.

I don't understand why we don't do what the ANG does with their AD guys who are on staff tours- those guys still go fly with squadrons to keep their currency and meet at least the mins for flying for the fiscal year.

My old man did it for his entire career. With those guys, there is no such thing as a non-flying tour.

 

[Jim123]

Yeah, the air stations used to have station airplanes, the CODs were flown by pilots that were part of ship's company, air wing staffers flew with the squadrons regularly, and so on. All that stuff costs money...

 

[Fallonflyr]

https://www.airforcetimes.com/news/...s-down-possibility-of-enlisted-combat-pilots/

Never mind.

Looks like the Air Force is looking for the cheapest, fastest way to teach a rock to fly...how corporate of them.

 

[fc2spyguy]

Looks like the Air Force is looking for the cheapest, fastest way to teach a rock to fly...how corporate of them.

I think the more corporate thing to do would be to institute WOs. Long term it's much cheaper.

 

[HuggyU2]

Looks like the Air Force is looking for the cheapest, fastest way to teach a rock to fly...how corporate of them.

Care to elaborate?

 

[Deleted member 24525]

Holy shit this thread is dripping with condescension.