I spoke at the retirement of a master chief petty officer a few years back. Over supper the night prior he told me that when he’d been a brand-new boot in his first squadron the senior chief petty officer there had been one of the Navy’s last enlisted flyers, a program that dated back to World War II.
Well, here we are again:
The U.S. Navy awarded wings to its first two non-officer pilots in over sixty years. Faced with a growing shortage of pilots, the U.S. Navy has finally adopted a solution the U.S. Army implemented long ago; warrant officer pilots. The first fourteen navy warrant officer pilots were commissioned a year ago and sent off to flight school.
There’s no doubt that this is a great deal for those selected and will save the Navy money while setting up a juicy alternative career path to time spent shoveling PowerPoint briefs in the five-sided wind tunnel. What will be interesting is the effect that the arrival of flying warrant officers will have on a traditionally hierchical naval culture – a culture which, although attenuated in aviation ready rooms as compared to the surface force wardrooms, is by no means absent.
There will be two tiers of pilots: The warrant officers who will only fly, and the commissioned officers who will also fly. The second cohort will generally be younger and undergo a “grooming” process for ultimate leadership roles while the first will already have a proven track record of leadership, albeit at a different level. The officers will be selected and advanced to command positions, but the warrants will face a kind of glass ceiling even as they perform the same work.
Nor is it hard to envision a multi-place cockpit wherein the warrant officer may be – in fact, probably will be – far the more experienced aviator, but junior in military rank. Add volatile personalities and ego to the mix – you can’t leave the latter out of a aviation setting – and it should make for some “interesting” CRM.
Another second order effect will come from the fact that such flying warrants will only be assigned to helicopter and patrol squadrons. Whether or not that will cause tension and “self-esteem” issues between those communities and “officers only” tactical jet ready rooms will again be interesting to watch.
This (he dryly observes) will no doubt be called a leadership issue.
Apparently, you bring Hummer dudes and term paper writing services together…(see comment #50) Shoulda done a better de-louse on RTB.
Any Friday musings today? Lessons learned from you night out?
Craig/Skippy,
Roger all on the ADO. Every Bubba I know who went that way ended up retiring at 15-20 as LCDRs and went to the lines.
They spent a lot of time in places like Gitmo and Cubi flying A-4′s some really enjoyed, instructor duty at Meridian (same) and stints as Cat “O”s (not that there is anything wrong with that)…
Why we try to reinvent the wheel every 10 years is beyond me.
Out of all the 3 major line officer (warrior) communities in the Navy- aviator, shoe and bubblehead, aviators used to outnumber the rest at over 60% (is that still about right?) creating a strict pyramid for 1310/20′s. There are only so many CAG jobs as we all know. It ain’t perfect but IMO it keeps all naval aviators on their toes and that is why we are the best (not just because we can thread the needle crossing the ramp)! Safety valve being the lines. Creating another ‘caste’ just complicates things..something like that program would be useful if it were 1941….And it was- then.
Lex- This IS sorta a “hummer love-in”. Whoa- that doesn’t sound good, do it?
b2
No worries B2!
We did and do work with fixed wing CAS for some things but generally no, we didn’t need any help. We also did some work for the USMC in Fallujah in 2004 that netted our unit a NUC.
I know you don’t know this but before there was an aviation branch in the Army (Vietnam War), attack helicopters were sometimes assigned to Artillery Units as Aerial Rocket Artillery.
Stumbled onto this discussion. Haven’t really kept up with Navy goings on since I retired in 94, but I was an FLDO; winged in 84 and got to fly again immediately after my VT tour. Finished in recruiting…all in all a pretty screwed up career pattern. I always liked the concept of fly only folks, but the Navy never had a real plan for FLDOs. We ended up competing with the line guys even in the training command because in reality individual commands had no direction from above regarding the LDOs. Worked out for me and the guys I stayed in touch with because we were saavy enough to compete. Had I not retired when I did, I’m pretty sure I would have been screwed from that point on though. My last choice was fly anything out of the Philipines or fly the admiral out of Keflavik or go recruit and prep for your retirement. I counted recruiting beans and prepped. I hope the plan for warrants is better managed.
I was one of the original ADO’s, selcted in ’87 and became effective upon executing orders in ’88. Worked out well for me. I chose the path due to needs of my family (I had two young kids and a wife who had two heart operations at age 32), just as I was coming up for third sea tour. Made it to O-5 and retired in ’97. Going ADO had it’s up’s/down’s but for a “few” of us it worked out. Overall, not a good program. Once Lehman was gone the program fell apart.