CWO's flying for the Navy again.

[Spyguy]

I got some of that info from some of the guys in on the planning for it. May not be the intent of what the actual message says. My experience is more from the VP/VQ community. I heard a lenthy discussion today concerning the helicopter side of the house. In our community, VP/VQ the senior ranking QUALIFIED individual is the one signing for the aircraft. Period. So, unless the guy/gal is the only a/c on a crew then they will never sign for a plane. I don't have a problem with CWO's flying, I just see it as the JO's getting the crap end of the stick from this anyway you look at it. I just don't understand why they won't use officers. There are more than enough college grads that want to fly. The navy already has a system set up to take well qualified E's out of the enlisted ranks, sends them to college (not if they already have been), go to OCS, then to flight school. A lot do great in the program. Also, just because someone has a private pilot's license, does not mean that they will make it in Mil training. We have some that wash out now. I just don't see the benefits of CWO's instead of O's. Except that it gets rid of a lot of the responsibilities for the CWO's. Most of my time at work was not flying, it was the ground job. I know the navy is not going to increase the number of pilots per squadron, so that means a ton more work that the JO's are going to have to make up. I figured it out once, while I was on det. JO's average 100-115 hours a week during a normal work week on detachment. The navy is going to have 30 CWO's to start out with, but if the program catches on then there is ABSOLUTELY no reason for someone officer candidate to join the navy instead of the air force. NONE. They are going to make life so miserable for JO's that no one will want to join, and my family is all navy. CWO's will not be going TACAIR, but helicopters make up 65% of naval aviation. If you include VT's, VR, VP, and VQ then roughly 80% or so is accounted for. This will greatly influence the community as a whole.

 

[transpac]

Spyguy, thanks for the info. Didn't use to work that way. The Ops Officer decided who the AC was going to be and relative rank didn't enter into the decision.

I've been out for a long time, but still have a few active duty contacts. I'm hearing rumors that in the near future a college degree will be required for promotion to the senior enlisted ranks and that those folks will be doing many of the traditional JO ground jobs. If true, this should ease the workload.

 

[VVJM265]

Two things:

What Spyguy says about who signs for the plane is pretty much true in VP/VQ, but in some helo squadrons, ops will balance the A time, so whoever is first on the schedule will sign the A sheet. We did that when I flew 26s. As long as the CO is on board, it works out OK. Not sure if this will pan out with the CWOs

The explanation I got was that it will increase the DH and command opportunities for the the URL pilots in the targeted communities. (ie X DH slots per Y URLs vs. X DH slots per (Y-30) URLs.) May make some sense, but that said, I think that Spyguy is right, especially if they ramp this up; in the end the URL JOs will get even more of the ground duties, QOL will go down the tube and guys won't want to hang around. Those two or three that hang on may have a really good chance at command, but it will be h311 getting there.

My 2c

 

[sandman2122]

So no fighters or tactical aircraft? Just crew type a/c?

 

[Spyguy]

correct sandman,P-3, helos, and not sure if VR is included C-40, C-9, c-130

 

[sandman2122]

Great opportunity. I'll bet they get overwhelmed with applicants.

They can go fly civilan like everyone else after their tour is complete - if they elect to seperate.

 

[zab1001]

So, unless the guy/gal is the only a/c on a crew then they will never sign for a plane.

Eh, I have a sneaking suspicion they'll qual these guys as PPCs and pair them up with URL TACCOs, probably O-4s. I'd bet against them making Mission Commander.

 

[Pistlpetet]

No Military has ever trained pilots to be "Just Co-Pilots". Sure there are some that are not worthy, and some that might never make AC, PIC, but they always have the opportunity. A copilot is only one bullet away from being the man in charge, and training someone with the with the mindset of "Well you are only going to be a co-pilot all your career" would be negligent. I doubt that will happen.

 

[sardaddy]

Pistlpetet,

You are right, no service wants to make a copilot and keep them as a copilot but in the Coast Guard and the Navy for the most part, there is a potential that you could be an aircraft commander yet not be able to sign for an aircraft if the pilots you continually fly with are senior in rank to you.

That is the potential problem of a CWO going to be a pilot in the Navy. They can get you trained an eventually give you an aircraft commander designation but if you fly with anyone senior to you they will be the AC unless you happen to be an IP and are conducting an IP flight.

Now at least in CG regs, and it seems Navy regs as well, the OPS boss can designate a junior AC to be the AC over a senior pilot for a flight, but it isn't the norm. Since only 30 warrants are supposed to be made then the majority of the time, they will be flying with someone more senior. This is the crux of what I meant in my original post. In order for this to work there will have to be an institutional change on how an AC is chosen.

Heck, the problem is inherent now with just commissioned pilots. Many don't actually sign for an aircraft for quite sometime after being designated as an AC. But they eventually become more senior and sign for more and more missions. A warrant officer won't have that opportunity.

 

[zab1001]

Eventually the CWOs will qual as ACs and be paired with unquall'ed URL guys (still in the syllabus for PPC) as their 2Ps and 3Ps.

I've had plenty of hops as PPC with guys senior to me (in rank) as my 2P, since they were still in the process of getting quall'ed (prior SWOs) or re-quall'ed (new O-4 DHs just checking in to the squadron).

 

[T1bubba]

In my VQ squadron we very rarely had more than one AC on a crew. It takes new guys a long time to get the hours to upgrade so I doubt anyone would be stuck as an AC qualified copilot very often. If anything, the CWO's would probably fly more due to the lack of demanding ground jobs and would make IP faster than the O's.

Don't know about VP, but in VQ we had plenty of completely worthless ground jobs being filled by JO's. I did a year as the AE branch O. I'd expect the CWO's would be assigned to some of those types of jobs.

VR is not included, although if it was the CWO's would almost never sign for the aircraft as AC's are paired up much more often.

From the message-

[FONT=&quot]INDIVIDUAL CAREER CONSIDERATIONS:[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] A. UPON WINGING, SELECTEES WILL INCUR AN 8 YR MINIMUM SERVICE[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]REQUIREMENT (MSR) FOR PILOTS, 6 YR MSR FOR NAVAL FLIGHT OFFICERS.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] B. TOUR LENGTHS: SEA 36 MONTHS, SHORE 33 MONTHS.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] C. ELIGIBLE ASSIGNMENTS: VP, VQ (P), VQ (T), HSC, HSL AND[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]ASSOCIATED FRS, TRACOM, NSAWC, AND WEAPON SCHOOLS.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] D. SELECTEES ARE NOT ELIGIBLE FOR DEPARTMENT HEAD (DH) TOURS[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]AND WILL FILL JUNIOR OFFICER (JO) BILLETS ONLY. THE INTENT IS FOR[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]FLYING CHIEF WARRANT OFFICERS NOT TO FILL JO BILLETS THAT ARE[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]NORMALLY CONSIDERED CAREER MILESTONES FOR URL OFFICERS.


[/FONT]

 

[Spyguy]

You have to ask yourself why would the navy NEED to do it. I have this large suspicion that they know that they are going to have a retention problem and a recruitment problem very soon. The QOL, which was low to begin with, is quickly vanishing. VP is having difficulty attracting good pilots because no one is getting hours/mission stinks/promotion is bad/community's future is in question. Airline industry not a bright place to plan on working, so why would a smart individual plan on mil/civi transition. So, people are choosing other stuff to do in the military or not join all together. TACAMO doesn't count because they are pretty much the closest thing to being in the air force the navy has. In my community (VQ (P)), I do not know 1 single pilot who plans on staying within 2 years of my year group. That may change when the time comes, but I have known a lot of these people going on six to seven years, and I can say with confidence that they are not on the fence. They are getting out.
I am not one of those who is bitter because of a crappy tour or two. I have performed very well at each tour and have set myself up so I could at least retire in the navy if I choose. I will not.

 

[Pistlpetet]

I am just curious, but the topic of this post started by implying that WO's use to fly in the Navy as pilots. I could not find anything relating to the Navy ever having enlisted guys, or warrant officers as pilots. I know the Marine Corps had flying sergeants. Can one of you squids school me up with a quick history.

 

[T1bubba]

I doubt they need to do it, if they needed it they would be training more than 30 folks. My guess is that this is their answer to the often repeated suggestion of having a flying career track and a command career track. Instead of letting some JO's choose to stay in the cockpit maybe they'll have some CWO's do it. I wonder if they plan on sending the CWO's to a disassociated sea tour?

In communities with NFO's the Navy deals with pilot retention problems by simply being more selective or less selective for DH and CO. TACAMO has only had a handful of pilots stay over the years along with a few transfers from other communities, they just use more NFO's to fill in the gaps. If the Navy really wanted to keep pilots in they would have done away with the up or out career progression a long time ago, which leads me to believe that they are happy losing most pilots at their first opportunity to get out.

Off the top of my head I believe the Navy had enlisted guys flying in WWII, but I think it had ended by Korea. I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong...

 

[pilotyip]

We had the last enlisted pilot in VT-29 in 1968 when I went through Navigator school, all P-3 pilots had to be quailfied Celestial Navigiators back then. I think he retired in 1969.

 

[transpac]

The Navy recruited and trained enlisted pilots through 1947. A 30+ year career would have had them around in the mid to late '70s.

 

[scarface]

The Marine Corps had Warrant Officer pilots into the 70s. The ones that I knew had been fixed wing commisioned officers, got out of the Corps and came back in during Vietnam. The Corps took them back with the mea culpa of flying helicopters and accepting a Warrant. Over all not a bad deal as no one really knew what to do with them when they weren't flying.

 

[transpac]

This discussion led me to do a little research on Navy enlisted pilots (NAPs). According to the Naval Aviation Museum website the first group was trained in 1919, with about 5000 NAPs being designated before the program quit accepting new applicants in 1947. Probably the best known was Floyd Bennett, Adm Byrd's personal pilot. NAPs were assigned throughout Naval Aviation, with one WW-ll squadron (VF-2) consisting of all enlisted pilots except the CO and XO. After WWll, most NAPs were assigned to VU, VT, VR and VRF squadrons, and to NAS's as staff pilots. The last enlisted pilot retired in 1981.

 

[hyflyt560]

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 warrant officer is going to get through promotions faster. A CW4 or CW5 makes as much as an LTC in some cases. And, most commisioned officers won't make it past MAJ. Additionally, a warrant officers flight pay never goes down.

Guy Hunter was a USMC warrant shot down during Desert Storm.

 

[Pistlpetet]

The Marine Corps had Warrant Officer pilots into the 70s. The ones that I knew had been fixed wing commisioned officers, got out of the Corps and came back in during Vietnam. The Corps took them back with the mea culpa of flying helicopters and accepting a Warrant. Over all not a bad deal as no one really knew what to do with them when they weren't flying.

I did mission in 1996 with some Reserve AH-1s attached to our unit. One of the Marine Pilots was a W-4. He started out as a CWO in the Army. It was pretty cool flying inbound on an attack with an AH-1 rolling in with me.