Who Drives an Aircraft Carrier?

[exNavyOffRec]

It’s complicated. Most guys on disassociated tours do not fly. The ship’s CO, XO and other ship’s company aviators do fly on occasion, but it’s more of a novelty for them, as they probably aren’t fully qualified and certainly not tactically proficient. Even a SWO CSG Admiral will fly with all the squadrons in the CVW that aren’t single seat. Think of it as an opportunity for them to get a better understanding of what their CVW is capable of, while connecting with the squadrons and showing an interest in what they all do.

One of the CO's I worked for told me that with all the duties of a CO it is difficult to keep up with all the requirements to be fully qualified, one told me he had planned to keep up his quals but it just didn't work out.

I guess there have been CO's that were able to maintain fully qualified status from what he said, their CVN command was probably SD or Norfolk as opposed to NW where resources are limited.

 

[Max the Mad Russian]

ANAV was a plumb VP billet for one of the chosen.

Interesting. Are there some links between diss tour CVN billets and communities NA/NFOs are getting there from? If ANAV is supposed to be VP guy/gal... Shooter? Fighter jock in average? And more interesting: are there the CVN ship's company billets, aviation-related, for exchange USAF dudes? For Marine NAs?

 

[Brett327]

One of the CO's I worked for told me that with all the duties of a CO it is difficult to keep up with all the requirements to be fully qualified, one told me he had planned to keep up his quals but it just didn't work out.

I guess there have been CO's that were able to maintain fully qualified status from what he said, their CVN command was probably SD or Norfolk as opposed to NW where resources are limited.

Nobody who is in the AVN world is qualified to do much more than sit back and enjoy the fact that you’re not on the bridge for a couple hours.

Interesting. Are there some links between diss tour CVN billets and communities NA/NFOs are getting there from? If ANAV is supposed to be VP guy/gal... Shooter? Fighter jock in average? And more interesting: are there the CVN ship's company billets, aviation-related, for exchange USAF dudes? For Marine NAs?

Max, you’re just babbling gibberish. You don’t even know what you don’t know. Just STFU.

 

[Max the Mad Russian]

Just STFU

What should I say? Yessir or Fuckoff? Can't decide right now, sorry.

 

[hscs]

On 2) What I found with the 1110's I knew on the CVN's was that most of them were on the track to being a civilian, on my last sea tour I knew the CHENG from a previous tour and asked him what the benefit was of a 1110 going to a CVN and he said none, it is essentially a career killer and often the 1110's that go to CVN's were sent there so those that had good records could go to career enhancing billets.

3) I don't know if I understand this, what do you mean by "no interaction with the rest of interested parties" the RO would be at DH meetings, if you are speaking in regards to flight ops that I do understand what you are saying.

7) don't forget nuke LDO's and nuke CWO's on their first sea tour since commissioning so they can earn their SWO pin, I can't tell you how thrilled most are to do this. I had a friend who was a nuke LDO and we ended up being stationed together at sea after he was commissioned, the CO was so impressed by him that every time we were going in/out of port or an unrep he wanted him on the bridge.

To your #3 - The RO is not part of the CUB, planning meetings with various staffs, or apart of ship - CVW relations other than trying to shut off the water.

to #7 - yes but how many do? Most are busy qualifying on the plant. I never saw one attempt. And then I would ask, what makes them any different than the conventional LDOs?

 

[Pags]

Someone mentioned that an aviator earned a SWO pin during a disassociated tour. So, is this a sear tour when an aviator does not fly? If so, why don't they fly? If they don't fly, does it not make sense to learn to drive a ship during this tour and earn that SWO pin if they might command a ship someday? Or, would the SWO community be upset about that?

Thanks.

You don't fly because you have a job that doesn't require you to fly and you work for an organization (boat) that doesn't own any airplanes. Depending on the shipboard job you have you may learn to drive the boat. On disassociated tours on LHA/LHD/LPDs aviators are expected to drive the boat and earn their OOD qual. But, as mentioned before OOD ≠ SWO pin and there are rules that prevent an Aviator from getting a SWO pin. Also, since the SWO pin doesn't get an Aviator anything career wise there'd be little incentive to go through the pain of getting one while doing your day job. A SWO pin is not required for an Aviator who is in command of a ship. At the end of the day the SWO pin is just a piece of metal and does not magically confer experience or competence.

 

[BigRed389]

You don't fly because you have a job that doesn't require you to fly and you work for an organization (boat) that doesn't own any airplanes. Depending on the shipboard job you have you may learn to drive the boat. On disassociated tours on LHA/LHD/LPDs aviators are expected to drive the boat and earn their OOD qual. But, as mentioned before OOD ≠ SWO pin and there are rules that prevent an Aviator from getting a SWO pin. Also, since the SWO pin doesn't get an Aviator anything career wise there'd be little incentive to go through the pain of getting one while doing your day job. A SWO pin is not required for an Aviator who is in command of a ship. At the end of the day the SWO pin is just a piece of metal and does not magically confer experience or competence.

And really, I don't think it was the aviators getting SWO pins that people were getting all salty about. There's a reasonable argument that a URL that does their day job in either IAMD/ASW/SUW/Strike/EW or other core Navy war at sea mission sets will "get it."

It's when the METOCs, JAGs, and many other Staff/RL types without a warfare background were "having to" pick it up as part of their career progression that it probably started to get stupid.

 

[exNavyOffRec]

To your #3 - The RO is not part of the CUB, planning meetings with various staffs, or apart of ship - CVW relations other than trying to shut off the water.

to #7 - yes but how many do? Most are busy qualifying on the plant. I never saw one attempt. And then I would ask, what makes them any different than the conventional LDOs?

Maybe things shifted, the RO seemed to be up top for meetings quite a bit, and ever since that started it became harder to do maintenance, more restrictions and such, for a few CO's every time we were at sea and anchor detail an E-6 nuke had to be on the bridge if the OOD had any plant related questions, often we had donuts lol

All nuke LDO's and nearly all CWO's since the late 90's/early2000's were required to, there were some CWO's that didn't but they had short career plans.

Now before that time few ever did, someone decided it was important for their career to qualify.

 

[Short]

Our best OODs were SWO options and a host of random others (aviators and LDOs). Second tour SWOs seemed to struggle and the other Os with a SWO pin had to generally get prodded to come to the bridge.

There are definitely aviators on a disassociated tour who get the requisite amount of experience to pass a SWO board.

 

[nittany03]

It's when the METOCs, JAGs, and many other Staff/RL types without a warfare background were "having to" pick it up as part of their career progression that it probably started to get stupid.

Yeah, but didn't at least some of those folks have to start out as SWOs and then switch? I remember when I commissioned in the early 2000's, we had some SWO/METOC and SWO/Oceanography types in my ROTC class, and the expectation for all of them was that they had to earn a SWO pin first. Maybe that was just a momentary thing?

 

[BarryD]

Yeah, but didn't at least some of those folks have to start out as SWOs and then switch? I remember when I commissioned in the early 2000's, we had some SWO/METOC and SWO/Oceanography types in my ROTC class, and the expectation for all of them was that they had to earn a SWO pin first. Maybe that was just a momentary thing?

Still around these days -- you can put SWO/Intel, SWO/EDO, SWO/METOC, etc on your designator dream sheet. More or less the same requirements: they have to earn their SWO pin and complete their first DIVO tour before they can lateral transfer.

edit -- EDO requirements are slightly different than the IWC ones
edit 2-- referring to ROTC (and I'm pretty sure USNA), can't speak to OCS

 

[exNavyOffRec]

Still around these days -- you can put SWO/Intel, SWO/EDO, SWO/METOC, etc on your designator dream sheet. More or less the same requirements: they have to earn their SWO pin and complete their first DIVO tour before they can lateral transfer.

edit -- EDO requirements are slightly different than the IWC ones

SWO-Intel on the books but have not seen or heard of a person picked for this via OCS, initially we were told they made the PA so they could use SWO-Intel for USNA and NROTC accessions.

 

[nittany03]

To your #3 - The RO is not part of the CUB, planning meetings with various staffs, or apart of ship - CVW relations other than trying to shut off the water.

Missed this earlier, but it reminds me of a later post by Neptunus Lex (RIP) where he talked about eye-openers he had by being Connie's OpsO. Specifically, having to go on water hours on a conventional CV, and how the troops and junior blackshoes always blamed Those Goddamned Aviators™ and their Hollywood showers. Apparently, once he was in the inner circle of the Heads of Departments, he realized that water hours actually synced up quite predictably not with aviator showers, but CHENG's need to flush the boiler tubes with fresh water . . .

Does lead to a question, though. Why do squadrons and small boys have Department Heads, whilst Mom has Heads of Departments? Things that make you go "hmm . . ."

 

[sickboy]

Does lead to a question, though. Why do squadrons and small boys have Department Heads, whilst Mom has Heads of Departments? Things that make you go "hmm . . ."

I always assumed that a post command HOD got butt hurt about being a DH again.

 

[exNavyOffRec]

Missed this earlier, but it reminds me of a later post by Neptunus Lex (RIP) where he talked about eye-openers he had by being Connie's OpsO. Specifically, having to go on water hours on a conventional CV, and how the troops and junior blackshoes always blamed Those Goddamned Aviators™ and their Hollywood showers. Apparently, once he was in the inner circle of the Heads of Departments, he realized that water hours actually synced up quite predictably not with aviator showers, but CHENG's need to flush the boiler tubes with fresh water . . .

Does lead to a question, though. Why do squadrons and small boys have Department Heads, whilst Mom has Heads of Departments? Things that make you go "hmm . . ."

We came close to water hours a few times on my tours, usually avoided by halting all washing of planes, the way the Nimitz class distilling units worked was we could manipulate them to get more water in the short term, but long term it would cause more maintenance, there were times we would chip out scale that was half an inch thick.

Strange as it may seem the CO would be concerned about potable water levels and usage since we had to maintain a specific level for Reactor Fill requirements, violate that and not good things happen.

In other odd things dealing with water when I was on the Lincoln I had to figure out how to unrep potable water to one of our DDG's, we fueled them up and then gave them water.