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CO of USS Theodore Roosevelt makes quite the statement.

azguy

Well-Known Member
None
I disagree with you. Strategically, it has been of unbelievable importance to get a big deck, let alone any ship into Vietnam. There's a reason why a 4 Star went there with the ship. With the restrictions there are with getting in there, and how many times we've had to cancel on them for (name-a-reason) it was looking like we were blowing them off repeatedly though that was never the intent. 7th Fleet AOR is a TSC field of landmines and trying to repair some relationships, get new relationships, and maintain others is a delicate balance. At the time they pulled in, Vietnam had no known cases and we had high confidence in their reporting. By the time they left, Western tourists had introduced it, and we (Navy + Gov of VNM) traced it very specifically to the individuals who could have even remotely come into contact with the tourists and recommended action. Then the known first cases pop up at the within hours of the end of the normal incubation period assuming the virus came on board the second the ship got underway. This is where I start getting into stuff I cannot disclose here, so I won't.

Edit: One more thing - the environment around COVID at the time in the West was fairly lax. We had been putting on tight controls throughout the fleet already, but keep in mind, as a Government, the thoughts were only beginning to get spun up that it could be a threat to Americans.

Good explanation - you changed my mind on the issue somewhat. Having spent time in FDNF recently I don't really buy the TSC sensitivities at all. Never have I operated in a theater that seems less concerned with TSC than C7F. I was, however, viewing this from the lens of perfect 20/20 hindsight. I didn't realize there were no cases of COVID in Vietnam yet, that's good info and I'm sure affected commander's risk calculus.
 
Carriers are conned by themselves, this is one of AW top secrets. Beware to spread it since no one will believe :)



Actually, all COs of the carriers had a year and a half in command of USNS ship no related to aviation with half-civilian crew and this is enough to obtain some skills you're evidently looking for. But most important - one of the carrier's DH, a Reactor Officer, is an experienced shipdriver with permanent nuclear training (Rickover's breed is better suit the word "education") fresh from his\her command tour of a DDG. Some of the carrier's SWOs (no less than 40+ aboard ) are qualified as OOD, too. And of course escorting DesRon Commodore, a shipdriver too, is on board. Thus, if the carrier CO gets in some question as to how to drive his ship, he has a lot of advisers. But since only highly motivated people are allowed to command the carriers, they all have enough brain&brilliancy to know how to cope with this job.
Thanks, Max.

So, at some point naval aviators have to step away from being a pilot and command a ship if they want to be a carrier CO?

If so, what type of ship, please?

Thanks.
 
Are the carriers COs and air wing COs on equal footing?

Are positions equally as competitive to attain?

I would imagine that a carrier CO does not fly, while an air wing CO does fly. Could one then argue that the air wing CO is the more enviable position if one wants to continue to fly?
 

A Day In The Life

Well-Known Member
pilot
Are the carriers COs and air wing COs on equal footing?

Are positions equally as competitive to attain?

I would imagine that a carrier CO does not fly, while an air wing CO does fly. Could one then argue that the air wing CO is the more enviable position if one wants to continue to fly?

The path to be a CO of a CVN is longer than being CAG and therefore they are senior O-6s.

I have had both carrier skippers who flew and didn't.
 

FormerRecruitingGuru

Making Recruiting Great Again
Are the carriers COs and air wing COs on equal footing?

Are positions equally as competitive to attain?

I would imagine that a carrier CO does not fly, while an air wing CO does fly. Could one then argue that the air wing CO is the more enviable position if one wants to continue to fly?

CAG is a major command. CVN CO is a sequential major command, meaning they had major command somewhere else (usually an amphib or blue ridge/mount Whitney before being selected and becoming a CVN CO).
 
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