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AVO Warrant Officer (Aerial Vehicle Operator) MQ-25
- Thread starter johnboyA6E
- Start date
Does the Navy plan to model it after the Army’s Flying Warrant program?
Are there problems or issues that the Army’s program generates, which could be reasons for the Navy not to emulate it? From what little I know about it, the Army’s program appears highly successful.
Are there problems or issues that the Army’s program generates, which could be reasons for the Navy not to emulate it? From what little I know about it, the Army’s program appears highly successful.
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Judging from this thread I see the only drawback being that AVO Warrant Pilots will be seen as “less” in the fleet thus further increasing the divide between manned and unmanned systems at a time when they need to be closer.
As for the Army program, it works very well. While I think it could work well for the Navy, it is clear the navy disagrees!
The merit I can see is that you can maintain the sufficient numbers of officers, and keep them flying in type and gaining expertise and proficiency, in a very narrow community without worrying so much about their career track.
Put it this way: there will be two Stingray squadrons plus a schoolhouse. Type wing will still be ACCLW. Not really much room for command and advancement.
So your options are basically:
- Have AVOs popping in and out on their disassociated tours. This is the model MPRG has been trying with Triton and as somebody else mentioned, it has a lot of problems. They don’t bring any experience in with them, and leave as soon as they start to know what they’re doing, not to mention it doesn’t help them in their source manned community, career wise or flight time wise.
- Pilots cross train on manned and UAS platforms and fly both...the Fire Scout model and that has had a shitload of problems.
- Use Reservists, or create an Active “permanent flying JO” dead-end option, and we know how much Big Navy doesn’t like either of those ideas.
- Do like the Army: use Warrants as the bulk of your pilots and aircraft experts, with a few regular line officers running the squadron.
not sure what you mean by that. i don't think, and didn't mean to imply, that drones are "beneath" manned pilots. i do think it's different, just as NA is different than NFO.
i think that most people who seek to fly in the Navy want to actually be in the aircraft. yes, needs of the Navy always apply but, in my opinion, wanting to fly jets and getting assigned helos is a lot different that wanting jets and getting drones. to me, it seems like it should be a different designator.
in my view (which might be in the minority), it would be like an SNA doing well in primary then being assigned to be an NFO, or SWO because Needs of the Navy. neither job is "beneath" being a pilot, just different.
then again, i've been out of the Navy for more than two decades. is a Navy pilot getting assigned to drones considered a good deal now?
Nobody in the Navy “gets drones” out of flight school (I think maybe Marines are different). Some JO helo HSC guys go to composite helo/Fire Scout squadrons and cross train. VP guys can go to VUP-19 and fly Triton for a shore tour option, and from what I saw it’s a desired job, at least for the JOs. Doing something operational as opposed to the RAG, and robot stink isn’t a bad thing to have on your resume if you want to work in industry on the outside. Small UAS are almost all Reservists and enlisted.
FWIW, my command has a new requirement that all rated pilots both military and DAF Civilians, are now required to maintain the Part 107 UAS Airman certificate - so I just started down that path. "There’s a great future in plastics. Think about it. Will you think about it? "
I think you said a lot of smart things here, some of which I hadn't thought of. Here's why I think a 1330 URL community is the right answer:
- You want DHs and COs who understand the platform and "lead from the cockpit" for lack of a better term. What's the alternative? Is the UAS group to be a Det of a bigger squadron, or will the OIC/CO not be qualified in model? That would be weird.
- I think we're still stuck in the WW2 mentality of Naval Aviation (i.e., it's all about manned platforms in high threat environments performing every step of the kill chain). Really, every major SUW fight these days would be a multi-platform and even multi-domain kill chain, where VFA is only the last step (albeit the sexiest).
- The WW2 pilot mentality worked in that time, but now we need nerds. We need people who play RTS more than FPS video games, because that's what the F2T2 part of F2T2EA requires. We still need jet jocks, but not solely, nor should they be better setup for promotion.
- IMO, C2 and ISR experience is far more valuable for a CSG RDML. No, I'm not one and have never been on staff, but SWOs and RW types seem to succeed in the role. My point is the UAS career path should also allow for upward mobility to that point.
- Same point as above for CAGs. Again, not my area of expertise, but is being the ultimate strike lead really a requirement for being CAG, or is it more about general aviation experience/understanding, and couldn't we ensure every other CAG is a VFA bubba (like how LHx platforms alternate aviator/SWO in the front office)?
It seems to work okay for the C-2 community. And it works okay for the VMU community.
Small doesn't mean bad- plus everyone and their brother wants an O-5 MQ/RQ trained guy on their staff. The people they get are varied in both their experience and skill from, "Yeah, I looked a UAV when I was an O-3" to "I have a couple of years of experience flying them" to "I was a squadron commander, but I just NJP'd kids and signed the flight schedule, the JOs did everything else."
They aren't in the Marine Corps out of flight school either. They are potentially given an option to transition to UAVs if they fail out after they've passed their instrument NATOPS checkride (so VMU has a few guys who failed out of Jet Advanced). However, they do count as a "competitive air" slot at TBS, so that's a little bastardly baiting and switching.
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These are a good points.
There are not enough people in either the UAS persistent ISR/Strike or the Intel communities that can actually describe how the joint targeting cycle and the PED cycle intertwine and work together. The USAF tries at the MQ-9 FTU (FRS) but it's too high level of information taught way too early in one's career.
This platform will almost certainly have future capabilities other than tanking. They should probably consider what the necessary skillsets will be, and design the squadron around that, not just what it will be capable of at IOC.
My point is that UAS is just never going to reach critical mass in the Navy, at least not in the next 20-30 years; there just aren’t going to be enough units to support a traditinalURL career track. Trying to make the standard manned construct fit UAS just results in everybody in the squadron being low-time and new to robot driving...that’s the situation now and I can tell you firsthand that it’s unwieldy as hell and we’re lucky the Class A rate isn’t higher than it is. I could tell you stories but they’re more suitable for over a beer than splashed on the Interwebs.
You’d know better than I for VMU, but as I understand it, it’s a fairly different construct than a CVW squadron. As for the COD bubbas, fair point, but it has generally worked out because they’re part of the larger E-2 community for promotion purposes - C-2 guys can command the RAG and Wing, etc. I don’t think the same would be true of a VUK (or whatever) community.
It also seems to be the case that UAS WO will eventually become your AVOs in all large UAS communities, Triton, etc. I don’t know how they’d make it work for the 60/Fire Scout LCS dets, but my Peter Tingle tells me the composite det concept is going to die in the next 5-ish years anyway.
I can see this working from within the squadrons- but externally I think there will be significant problems that will keep the community from growing into a legitimate player at the table instead of being related to bus boy.
From the VMU side, we had RQ-2 SNCO external pilots that were flying the GCA box and shooting PARs through the weather to land on the active runway and taxi clear. These were also the guys that knew stuff tactically- flying off of battleships in Gulf War 1 as well as from the dirt.
But when they would walk into a planning cell at whatever exercise they were told to STFU while the real adults did the work, their contributions weren't needed...
Will the VFA/VAQ/VAW patch wearers welcome the MQ-25 CWO3 to the table, or will they continue in line with what the Marines were doing? Rank means a lot- and if you're breaking with the construct of a normal flying squadron, then you're setting up a caste system in which one guy is more important than the other.
I also agree that robot flying is a skill in and of itself, and it's different from regular flying. Everyone is beginning to understand that traditional pilot interfaces when applied UAS are seriously limiting and the ergonomics of human interaction with automation is a very hot topic right now.