• 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

TAO / Air Ops on CVN

Monarch said:
I’ll definitely PM you, thanks! And yes I have talked to the OCM. They don’t seem too interested in my applying to FAO, probably because I’m not competitive as a JO at the end of my first sea tour, but they have answered some basic questions. I figured it doesn’t hurt to apply early though, and keep applying for as long as I can.

As for general questions, I’m interested to know how you get your first “real job” as an FAO. So say you get accepted, then do they then send you to CA for your degree in international relations? And then, if required, keep you there for language school for your region?

After that do you get to request a type of job, or will they delegate you into a spot? The HR page mentions Security and Defense Attache, but those are pretty general terms. I imagine every position, with the exception of someone who works in an embassy office for instance, will be traveling most of the time for work.

And lastly, do you have some semblance of work-life balance? Some people describe jobs as “living the dream” but then you realize they have a highly skewed vision of what having time to yourself looks like. Being overseas has made me realize I need to have time with my family in the states at least twice a year, or it feels like they hardly exist in my life.
Click to expand...
Of course! Fair warning, essay to follow.

That’s the right attitude to have. If the OCM didn’t mention it, the community values repeated interest, and will definitely note it on subsequent lat transfer boards if you don’t pick up the first time.

Your initial FAO progression will be completely dependent on your timing/source community performance, but your understanding of the generic track is pretty close. Once you get picked up, you'll be assigned a region (by COCOM) within a few weeks of the board. You'll likely only get a choice of one or two jobs every time you're up for orders, as the community is so small that detailing has ripple effects.

Assuming you don't already have a regionally focused master's degree, they'll either send you to NPS (most common) or another school (the Marshall Center in Germany is one option). After you're complete with that program, you'll go to DLI, either in Monterey (for languages like Russian, Mandarin, Spanish, etc.), or in DC (for lower demand languages like German).

Your next stop will depend on your follow-on job. There are three lines of work in FAOdom; being a Defense Attache, working in an office of Security Cooperation, and working on a staff (COCOM, Fleet, DC, etc.). As you progress in the community, it's assumed that you'll have experience in all three lines of work.

As a Defense Attache (working in an embassy), you'll be one of the ambassador's military advisors, be the primary U.S. military representative to the partner nation, and coordinate U.S. millitary activities in country. You will be the (or one of) the SMEs for the military chain of command on the goings-on in your country. Attaches typically focus more on the military-diplomat side of things in comparison to the Security Cooperation folks. You'll go to a 13 week training course at DIA called JMAS (Joint Military Attache School, https://www.dia.mil/Portals/110/Documents/About/JMAS/JMAS_Brochure_19May2023.pdf) and some other shorter training courses enroute to your embassy. I haven't been an attache yet, but I've heard the work schedule can be pretty fluid. Your travel schedule will vary based on the size of/goings-on in the partner nation, DIA-imposed requirements, and other factors outside of your control (VIP visits, exercises, etc.). As you get more senior/have had success in the Defense Attache Service (DAS), you'll likely become the Senior Defense Official (SDO) in a country, which means you'll be the senior U.S. military representative. Here's a link to the Navy Attache page, which gives a decent overview and has a list of Navy attache billets worldwide: https://www.mynavyhr.navy.mil/Career-Management/Detailing/Officer/Attache/

For the Security Cooperation (SC) line of work (working in an embassy), you'll work as either the Navy Programs Officer or the Security Cooperation Officer (head of the office), depending on the size of country and portfolio. Your job is to help the partner nation develop their military capabilities and to facilitate the sale of U.S. produced military equipment. As such, you'll spend a lot of time meeting with the partner to determine capability gaps and then helping them create a plan to build capability through training, equipment, exercise participation, etc. You'll spend a ton of time interacting with the partner and traveling around the country, but that will typically be in the form of site visits, exercise planning conferences, etc. Your schedule will largely be a normal workday, but will vary based on partner needs and things like exercises, conferences, or site visits.

Your role on a staff will vary depending on where you're stationed. For example, I'm a country desk officer in the J5 at AFRICOM. I work with the military team in country to write our strategy to help the partner reach their military goals, make sure the strategy aligns with operational efforts, coordinate security cooperation with my country, and serve as the SME on staff for all things related to my country portfolio. Like on any staff, it can be a bunch of busy work, but it has the perk of as much travel to the continent as I want, and a pretty stable work schedule. On other staffs you may serve as a foreign military sales SME, a defense policy SME, or the security cooperaiton coordinator for the theater, among others.

On your work-life balance question, it totally will depend on the job you're in, and what's happening in that particular country. Overall, your workload and schedule will generally be less intense than an operational tour, unless you're working in a hot spot (e.g FAOs in Israel, Ukraine, DRC, etc. are basically working 24/7). Most people at embassies are able to take leave a few times a year, but no guarantees on having the time to make it back to the states. Staff life is way more flexible, and I'd plan on that being a 9-5 gig unless there's a crisis. All that being said, 70% of FAO tours are overseas, so I would be prepared/prepare your family for only occasional trips back to the states.
 
Hozer said:
TAO from '04 -'07 (goddam, 20 years ago?, wtf) Only one deployment though because the ship was decom'd (JFK). TAO was interesting. Lots of nerdy Link stuff and pretty amazing data fusion these days after coming from the days of HF data link, Link 11 and Hawklink.

TAO is in charge of defending the ship. You will be an expert in the employment of the ships self-defense systems, missiles, CIWS, etc. You will understand how layered defense works because of the integration of AW and the like. We shot the damn CIWS anytime we could, so that was always a good time.
You will stand watch in CDC pretty much everyday. You will be the OI DIVO, and have an opportunity to know a lot about what the "big picture" is because you will work closely with OPS.

TAO was harder to break out of the fitrep group because some shooters, A-Ops and ANAV were the preferred pre-DH JO jobs.
We also ran the Mess and had a fucking blast.
YMMV.
Click to expand...
Hey remember when we froze to the pier in Boston?
 
FormerRecruitingGuru said:
Somewhat related but CVN air boss and CVN air ops are two different people right?
Click to expand...
Yes, different people:

Air Boss (post-command CO/O-5) & Mini-Air Boss (non-command O-5) run flight deck operations from the tower (Pri-Fly). Air Boss is a Head of Department (HOD) in charge of the Air Department on the CVN.

Air Ops (non-command O-5 & works for the Ship’s Operations Officer [post command CO/O-5…also a HOD]) is responsible for the positive control and safety of all aircraft during launch and recovery in the control zone surrounding the carrier. Conducts radar controlled departures & approaches from CATCC during night-time or bad weather (case III) flight operations.
 
ea6bflyr said:
Yes, different people:

Air Boss (post-command CO/O-5) & Mini-Air Boss (non-command O-5) run flight deck operations from the tower (Pri-Fly). Air Boss is a Head of Department (HOD) in charge of the Air Department on the CVN.

Air Ops (non-command O-5 & works for the Ship’s Operations Officer [post command CO/O-5…also a HOD]) is responsible for the positive control and safety of all aircraft during launch and recovery in the control zone surrounding the carrier. Conducts radar controlled departures & approaches from CATCC during night-time or bad weather (case III) flight operations.
Click to expand...
Now hold up one second, the detailer emailed me “Air Ops” for the billets available. I’m certainly not an O5. I’m guessing now that they simply did not state *Assistant* Air Ops or something of that nature..
 
Monarch said:
Now hold up one second, the detailer emailed me “Air Ops” for the billets available. I’m certainly not an O5. I’m guessing now that they simply did not state *Assistant* Air Ops or something of that nature..
Click to expand...
I’m sure they meant assistant air ops or assistant strike ops (both O-3 billets).
 
you're gonna be standing watch either way. OOD for Air Ops billets and TAO for, uh, TAO billets.

as others stated, if you have good timing after a year and change you MIGHT break out with a ranked EP. But really, even that doesn't mean much.
 
As an Assistant Air Ops Officer (what your detailer calls Air Ops) you will stand watch in CATCC. None of my A-Air Ops stand other watches (OOD, TAO, etc) due to time/manning constraints but I can only speak for my ship. I was able to get one of them into a competitive breakout EP on their highwater but they had to hold down some big ship-wide collaterals to get there. Timing also a big factor there.

Current CVN OPSO here.
 
@Monarch I'm not trying to shit in your wheaties, but you rolling in as a VOLTERM 1300 isn't going to put you at the high end of the list for competitive paper against your 1315 peers that did multiple flying tours. I have no idea what FAO competitiveness looks like, but just keep eyes wide open on the consequences of your choices. FWIW my owning VOLTERMed in his first tour and went AEDO right away, seems to be doing okay.
 
Also had an onwing volterm followed by a rather quick trip to separation land

(It’s quite easy for them to separate you if you have <6 years in)
 
Ass Air Ops- Click boxes on a spreadsheet when aircraft land during flight ops. Walk people to the COD on the flight deck. Study for real-estate license/ become a content creator. Stand watch in port every 3-7 days. Get OOD qual out of boredom.

TAO- Study for stuff, defend the ship yadda yadda yadda,

Telephone Answering Officer:
Get calls from every O-5 nobody who thinks they’re somebody calling like you’re a 1950s operator to pass messages to some other insignificant O-5 on the boat... you can ignore these requests and tell them the other person wasn‘t available if they call back. O4 or below just tell them you’re unable.
Watch plat cams and other camera sweeps abover the horizon. Think the flight deck is scary and be glad you don’t have to work outside.
Have helo VID unknown contact 10 miles from the ship… it’s a merchant vessel.
Have an OS behind the bridge throw missile tracks into the system “by mistake”.
Have the ANAV stop in and say hello... And pitch you coming up to the bridge some time to hang out... and get your OOD qual…
Have everyone bitch about the last TAO who got their OOD qual fucking everyone’s schedules up because the OODs are short staffed and on a rotating watch cycle while yours is fixed and everyone had to flex because the O-3 ANAV holds far more power on the ship than your O5 CDCO.
Have your CDCO stop in coming back from the “gym“ (napping in their stateroom) and ask you what meal is being served in WR3.
Listen to his epiphany that if he eats less he‘ll lose weight for the PRT so he’s only going to eat 3 bowls of food and maybe one ice cream.
Listen to your LDO you're on watch with talk about spin class being how he loses weight for 90 minutes.
Get phones calls from someone semi important (squadron CO or Ship Head of Depatment) to pass a message to someome else of semi importance. Make one attempt and give up.
That merchant track turned to unknown again… have the helo go back and VID is because some dumbasses a while back let a Houdong stand plane guard before anyone noticed it was there.
Have one of your NFO peers stop in and ask if you’ve got sunblock they can borrow on the next port call. Listen to him panic because he needs sunblock can’t find the one he packed and all the pharmacies in port are on the off limits list… Amazon takes 21 days and the port call is in a week so he’s SOL… know that his roommate hid his sunblock to mess with him… listen to the LDO tell the NFO that he’s welcome to stay on the ship with him… he stopped doing port calls 3 deployments ago after he got remarried... so he’s going to spin twice a day every day and it’ll be fun.
Steal coffee from the air ops folks next door.
Have the DESRON LT tell you that they need you to get the OOD to increase speed beyond COs standing orders to get the ships back on the track after they fucked it up…again. Tell them no and have them try to tell you that your ship falls under the DESRON. Remind them that you’re the HVU and if they don’t like that they can wake up their boss to have them call your boss.
Get called by the OPSO to stop by his office to explain to him so he can explain to the Admiral why during the last GQ drill the OOD let the patrol boat shadowing ya’ll slip out of view “beneath the flight deck” and you didn’t call up to the bridge to make the OOD turn the ship or tell them to sound 3 blasts for collision (Doesn’t matter that the Captain was on the bridge during the GQ and you’re not OOD qual’d)
Remind the Cruiser TAO in Chat that civilian traffic takes off from that airport daily and they shouldn’t shoot it down… and remind them that flight ops happen daily onboard so they shouldn’t shoot down your jets coming to land either... maybe this one will listen?
Have the DDG TAO message you and ask how many of their engines/screws they should have turned on to keep up with you. Tell them to drive their ship IAW their COs standing orders.
Do the math and calculate that realistically if you turned now that you could be home in 14 days instead of being stuck out for another 5 months of deployments with this bunch.
Yup, you guessed it… have the helo VID the same merchant… again…
Don’t get invited to follies because in the boat‘s heriacrchy of you’re lower than the E2 moles, the assistant air ops guy making instagram videos and whale shit.
Update your airline apps
Stand watch in port every 3-7 days.
Decide to get your OOD qual because you hate your life but you kinda hate the people you work with more and you have to cut your portcall short to attend sea and anchor briefings already anyways… that way you don’t have the time to compete for floor space in your 8 man “stateroom” (JO berthing) to make duck faced content like the assistant air ops dude next door… seriously wonder what he does all day outside of flight ops besides nap and wonder why you didn’t take those orders when you knew you were gonna GTFO anyways.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top