Do NFO's even have to worry about currency?
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First Shore Tour to NPS
- Thread starter MrFlyingBob
- Start date
Not that I know of. Is that a serious question, or just a weak attempt to take a dig at NFOs in general?
Back to the OP-T issue...yep, bunch of OP-T DH and even command billets out there that are not related to flying in any way. Since there ARE more flying billets for pilots than NFOs in the VTs, it's more of an issue for NFOs, I guess. But there are also pilots who've ended up on an amphib out of Norfolk. Definitely not staying current, meeting airline pilots, or seeing their families every day. Just saying, OP-T selection is a game of billet roulette with winners and losers. If I'm the first person to make you aware of that, you're welcome.
Back to the OP-T issue...yep, bunch of OP-T DH and even command billets out there that are not related to flying in any way. Since there ARE more flying billets for pilots than NFOs in the VTs, it's more of an issue for NFOs, I guess. But there are also pilots who've ended up on an amphib out of Norfolk. Definitely not staying current, meeting airline pilots, or seeing their families every day. Just saying, OP-T selection is a game of billet roulette with winners and losers. If I'm the first person to make you aware of that, you're welcome.
48 hours/year, 24 of which can be in the sim for NFOs/AW types. Not that hard to get even on shore duty, especially in MPRA.
Ralph, No, after shore tour, you have to do a dis-associated sea tour which is normally non-flying. The timing works out that you are usually up for O-4/LCDR and are going up for Department Head.
The magic eight ball says:
You both make valid points; however, it's also worth remembering that a DH pilot is supposed to be one of the senior, most experienced aviators in the ready room - in addition to other responsibilities. A guy might have done a JO tour, a non-production (i.e., non-flying, non-developing, non-experience building) shore tour, then onto another non-flying disassociated (or whatever you want to call it tour) - then he shows up as a DH with nothing more in his logbook than he had when he left five or six years prior. You can't ignore the impact that has, especially in a small ready room where you can't "hide" someone.
As my O-4 board nears, and I start thinking about next year's DH board, I've realized that if I make DH, I will leave my test tour current in the 60 but utterly non-proficient in fleet-flying and tactics. I would argue that my in-residence master's and test experience will contribute to my performance as a DH/O-4/leader on the ground. But as you say, I'll be expected to train NRFs in tactics - which I won't have performed in over 5 years by the time I reach my DH tour. I can cram a ton of NSAWC reading material into my head before reporting, but that's a poor replacement for recent flight experience.
I guess what I'm saying is that I'm reluctantly realizing why production tours, especially those in fleet models (FRS/WWS) are valued so highly.
I can't speak for your community, but I would say arriving back in the fleet "non-proficient in fleet-flying and tactics" is standard for new DH's. Tactics in our world change so frequently and significantly, unless you're at a weapons school or a squadron closely supporting them, you're very unlikely to stay proficient in current tactics. And I would say that's definitely true for most FRS instructors too. And even if you are in a very tactical shore tour job, there's a dramatic difference between providing fleet training and conducting cyclic combat operations at sea.
That said, I don't think we typically look to DH's for tactical instruction - that's what training officers are for. But for a hinge to have credibility in the ready room, they should have more aviation experience - preferably in gray aircraft - than the JO's. Bottom line, unless your community is radically different in that way, I think you'll be fine.
This.
While I agree that there is an impact several of my DH's had lengthy times out of the cockpit and it did not seem to impact their performance one way or thre other, the ones that were good were just that and the ones that sucked couldn't be helped even with another flying tour. Of course this also used to be mitigated by the option of a supper JO tour that seemed to be the. Opm I stead of the exception for TACAIR when I first came in.
Either way having only 2 or 3 set paths were you get 95% or more of your mid-grade and senior leaders can lead to an insularity and certain amount of close-mindedness (can't think of a better term right now sitting at Waffle House) that can harm a community longer term. I saw the effect of a similar insularity and its detrimental effect to a degree when I was with the Army in the sandbox and I saw the benefit of a variety of backgrounds in VQ.
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I'm not sure what benefit variety of background really brings to a squadron, where there isn't a lot of opportunity to exercise creativity. We're there, more or less, to operate a platform IAW a set of established procedures. It's not as though people are formulating policy or engaged in grand strategery. I think you may be overstating the value that NPS/Olmstead or even JPME would bring to an operational squadron. Personally (all else being equal), I would much rather have DHs who had maximized their time in the cockpit.
I think that's a huge problem. The senior guys, especially the DHs, have a responsibility to train the younger guys in tactics as well as officership. A single training officer can only do so much and additionally having multiple instructors brings variety of techniques in the aircraft that the nugget can learn from.
The best learning I had when I was a new guy was from a DH that had been in the cockpit of a gray aircraft the entire time, and he wasn't a SWTI. He just knew the nuances and bits of the aircraft that even the best of SWTIs weren't able to teach.
The worst DH to fly with was a guy who was a non armed helo JO, non flying shore and disassociated. He was a great guy but his stick skills were mediocre at best.