Aviation Admirals Question and Answer session

[Pcola04/30]

Aviation Admirals question and answer session at Aviation Museum

About two weeks ago there was a big symposium in P'cola where like 80 admirals were in town. Jim Lovell was entered into the Naval Aviation Museum Hall of Honor along with some other guys. After this there was a glorified sea story session with Capt Fox, LT Bowman and some other Aviators sharing stories from OIF.....(whew all that to get to the question)
This went down on thursday and on Friday all the top Admirals in Naval Aviation were on a panel taking questions from anyone who had the balls to ask one. I missed the events on friday (i classed up for API) but I heard that all kinds of gouge on the future of different platforms was discussed by CNATRA and the rest of the panel......can anyone elaborate on what was said. I'm sure lots of people would be interested in hearing what came out of the horses mouth. Thanks All...

 

[nittany03]

Yeah, please drop gouge if there's any to be had! I was stuck in Engines class . . .

 

[Pcola04/30]

Advanced degrees required...

Just found this article about the symposium...

PENSACOLA, Fl. (NNS) -- Graduate education opportunities and joint professional military education will become an increasingly important career milestone for naval aviators.

That was the message delivered by Chief of Naval Personnel Vice Adm. Gerry Hoewing at the Naval Aviation Museum Foundation’s Annual Symposium May 7.

“Our naval aviation career path is an extremely full career,” said Hoewing. “Between sea duty and shore duty and staff jobs, wedging in the opportunity for education has been difficult in the past. We’re going to make that a higher priority to ensure our officers have the requisite skills necessary to be better business managers and better leaders at the senior levels.”

The Navy has already begun addressing the issue, noted Hoewing. Efforts are underway to: increase post-graduate programs from several major universities in Fleet Concentration Areas; expand the Naval Postgraduate School’s Executive MBA program; and make distance and web-based joint professional education more accessible.

“We have to get this right,” added Hoewing. “We grow great naval officers. We’re good at that. But we also need to be able to grow visionary leaders who can lead at the highest levels of joint and combined warfare.”

Hoewing also took a few minutes to praise the level of commitment Sailors are showing to their service and gave a glimpse of what the future holds for the Navy’s workforce.

“Our Sailors out there want to serve. I would say the level of energy and patriotism is higher than I’ve seen in many, many years,” said Hoewing. “Sailors want to stay and are competing to stay in the Navy, because we are becoming the employer of choice.”

The Navy will have fewer people in the future, he noted, but that is because the Navy is taking advantage of technology and working to trim the actual requirement for manpower.

“One of our challenges is to make sure we have the force shaped to what the real jobs are out there in the fleet. We want to make sure we have our military people doing military work.”

The symposium brought together active, reserve and retired naval aviators from around the fleet to discuss current events and issues