CWO's flying for the Navy again.

[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.