CWO's flying for the Navy again.

[Spyguy]

What do you guys think about the navy's brightest idea of having E5 and E6's transfer to CWO slots, learn to fly and take all the shore flying billets away???
That's right, it looks like no more shore tours for aviators. Oh, and they won't have a ground job either, just flying.

 

[VVJM265]

Bad idea!

 

[pilotyip]

Would you need a college degree for that program?

 

[Rotorhead1]

The Army has been doing this for years. Their best pilots are CWO's. Great idea. Let the Commissioned Officers do what they are supposed to do and float around on boats and leave the flying to the true professional pilots the CWO's

 

[VVJM265]

The bad idea isn't the CWOs flying but keeping them in the shore billets. Folks are already starting to get run ragged. If the leadership wants to open other sources for pilots, that's fine, but keep everone on some kind of sea-shore rotation. This concept of outsourcing shore duty is going to bite the Navy in the rear in the long term because nobody will want to stay on continuous sea duty. I don't understand, why can't they figure that out?

 

[stangman]

I agree. Bad deal for us commissioned officers, just like it's a bad deal for Army commissioned officers. There are simply going to be fewer and fewer flying billets for commissioned aviators. Is it good for the Navy? Who cares!!
Here is the message:
http://www.npc.navy.mil/NR/rdonlyres/68EA9575-F351-48D0-9755-9F13E6045E16/0/NAV06031.txt
The CWO flying program is not designed for "shore duty" flying only. They will rotate between sea/shore rotations just like every one else. Looks like they will not have to do disassociated/staff/aide/war college tours and they will not serve in department head billets at squadrons. Their only job will be to fly a weapon system or a training command aircraft their entire career. Sounds like a pretty cool career path for some lucky "E's". Sounds like there will be more and more time out of the cockpit for "O's".

 

[Lou3]

wow, another window in life that opened up after I passed it. Bummer, it sounds like a good potential program. It has worked out well for the Army.

 

[millhouse21]

That's kind of funny. I can't tell you how many conversations I had with AAs who were mess cranking or working in the laundry. I would ask something like "why did you join the navy?" They would typically reply "I wanted to fly jets and my recruiter told me the best way to do that was to enlist and work my way up." I really thought those recruiters were full of sh1t but I guess they were just ahead of the times!!!

 

[Pistlpetet]

This seems like a cheap version of the NAVCAD program, which is what they should bring back if they are short of pilots. Personally, I do not think there should be a shortage of qualified candidates for them to select, however, I am sure they would like to get somebody into the cockpit cheaper.

If they want Warrant Officers, why don't they just take some of the ones that are getting out of the Army. They are already trained. It seems to work for the Coast Guard.

Any attempt to not integrate these Navy CWOs into the mainstream deployed Navy will just add to the resentment they will already face for being a non RLO (Real Live Officer) Pilot.

The Army Warrant system has served a purpose, but it should not be viewed as the ideal situation.

LDO's would be the way to go.

 

[sardaddy]

I think this is a very interesting topic so this is a very long post so please bear with me.

Having been a warrant officer pilot (Army) and now a commissioned pilot (Coast Guard) I have seem both sides and I do see a difference. I also see that in order to go from one way of operating to another will take a complete organizational change not just an arbitrary addition of 30 pilots.

The Army likes warrant officer for many reasons. Cheaper labor, and they don’t have a whole bunch of aviation officers competing for limited command slots.

The cheap labor: Many warrant officers resent the fact that they get paid less. They do the same job for less pay. It doesn’t start out that way, new warrants are just happy to be flying but as you grow older and more cynical you realize that these young LTs are making more than you and you have been doing the job for years.

The available officers: If the Army made all of their pilots officers, there would be more officers in aviation than any other branch and nobody in the Army wants that (except the aviators) because by law the Army is only authorized so many officers and those numbers would have to be pulled from other branches. The Army also has commands at very junior levels (O-3) and there just are not enough to go around so many would be left at the wayside early in their career and would not be competive for O-4 so you would lose your experience base. The other services do not have commands until much higher ranks and can accommodate a natural progression of an officer. Plus RLOs cost more.

So to get rid of warrant officers in the Army would be an institutional change.

To add warrant officer pilots into another service like the Navy is planning to do seems as if it will have some problems as well. Eventually, the same pay issues will arise as once the initial excitement of being able to fly wears off, these warrant officer pilots will realize they are just being paid less to do the same job and have no hope of upward mobility. Like Army Warrant Officers, many will not mind but there will be those that will. No matter what is said or done, they will be treated as second class citizens. The whole separate but equal thing. You are an equal when the wardroom needs money for the wardroom fund, but you are just a glorified enlisted man when other needs arise so the job is dumped on you.

Unlike the Army, the warrant officer will be the minority not the majority so he won’t have the backing of a crusty W-4 pilot who is willing to take that junior officer aside and explain how he is to treat warrant officers, especially once those pilots gain a lot of experience. Using the current Navy/Coast Guard system, a high flight time Warrant officer Aircraft Commander would still be a co-pilot to a low time O-2 Aircraft Commander. I see a lot of animosity that could arise from this.

I wish all of those that apply for the program good luck as with anything new there will be growing pains.