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Navy "Shooters"
- Thread starter Dangy
- Start date
It's what's called a dissociated tour. After your shore tour you have to do what's often (though not always) a non-flying but deploying tour. This mostly applies to VP/helo types, but not always, and often involves doing a shooter tour or other job on a carrier like ANAV, etc. From there if you get selected for O-4/DH you keep flying in your previous community. Both NFOs and pilots can do this, and at least in the VP community is actually a relatively competitive job to get.
It is a tough, hard working, important, but fulfilling job. Strict attention to detail is required, as you hold the lives of Shipmates in your hands on every launch and recovery.
EDIT-Sorry for the bum dope, regrettahly, things have changed... see post #9.
BzB
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.CVN ANAV is a highly competitive 1310/20 billet. LHD we had a second tour DH SWO as our NAV and we only had an ANAV if there was an extra pinned first tour sitting around.
Right now on my boat we have two helo guys (including myself), mostly P-3 pilots/NFO's, a TACAMO NFO, and an E-2 NFO. The only downside (if you want to call it that), especially for helo guys, is you really don't have time to get an OOD letter unless you don't like sleep or want to screw everyone else on the schedule. Not really a factor for O-4/DH, mostly if you have high ambitions beyond that. You will still get your fair share of SWOness, like 3M, OOD(Inport), etc, but I love the job and working with my criminals, er, ABE's.
To echo the above, I also like working with the ABs of all, er, colors. Your main job, other than flight deck ops, is as a branch/division officer in the Air Department, taking care of admin stuff. Most Shooters are land-based guys (VP, VQ), and it really is the best job on the boat.
Not trying to be an asshole, but a slight correction--most guys nowadays go up for their first O-4 look without any real paper from the boat and therefore it has little to no effect on promotion to O-4. Beyond that, I can't say. Shooter is a neutral-ish type tour: you probably won't get the #1 or #2 EP, but can do well enough out of 30 LTs to make a mark.
A successful shooter tour usually leads to DH selection/promotion, and is a huge plus along your career path. Many a Flag Officer has a Shooter tour in their career bio.
BzB
Not trying to be an asshole, but a slight correction--most guys nowadays go up for their first O-4 look without any real paper from the boat and therefore it has little to no effect on promotion to O-4. Beyond that, I can't say. Shooter is a neutral-ish type tour: you probably won't get the #1 or #2 EP, but can do well enough out of 30 LTs to make a mark.
Is the corollary to this that land-based guys are less likely to get a flying billet on the disassociated tour than carrier aircraft? The impression I got was that even though the second sea tour is technically a non-flying tour, there are some billets for VFA/VAQ that allow you to keep flying, but is this generally not the case for VP/VQ?
There are disassociated flying tours for VP/VQ types. Taking those orders is generally speaking considered negatively or would hurt your chances at Command if that was your goal. If your goal was to stay flying then that flying tour and the other doors it opens are pretty awesome.
Competitiveness of a shooter tour varies from year to year. When I was up, I had to pick my boat in Norfolk almost 2 years ahead of time. The ones that waited got the leftovers or had to take an alternate job to get the disassociated billet. During other years it was not nearly as competitive. Shooter was/is the best job on the boat for aviators if you are ships company. Extremely demanding but a lot of fun when you're on the deck and very rewarding when you're leading your division of 100+ sailors. All of our shooters got good fitreps, top 5 for the LT's, top 2-3 for the LCDR's usually. Air boss has everything to do with that fight. We had P-3, E-6, helo, and F-14 guys. My roomate was a helo guy who gt his OOD underway letter but he was miserable doing it. He still did his share of shooting, just had to wicker the schedule a little for his bridge watches.
I don't think there are as many flying opportunities for dis tour as there used to be (for VP/VQ types) but it's certainly doable and I know guys that have done it with great success. None of them screened for command but most screened for DH and selected for O5. As long as you are comfortable with closing those doors and you really want to fly, it's a great option and adds a lot of good experience to those units.
I don't think there are as many flying opportunities for dis tour as there used to be (for VP/VQ types) but it's certainly doable and I know guys that have done it with great success. None of them screened for command but most screened for DH and selected for O5. As long as you are comfortable with closing those doors and you really want to fly, it's a great option and adds a lot of good experience to those units.
I'm not a Carrier guy -- I have to assume the Shooters and Air Dept guys are ranked against the Nukes. How does that fall out? Hard breakouts against other aviators, with soft breaks against the Reactor Dept guys?
I'll have to look back at my fitreps, from what I remember we were all pooled together, but one advantage shooters have is they're just about the most senior LT's on the boat and the Air Boss is usually one of the most senior dept heads (my first Boss was junior only to the CO) when it comes time to fight it out. Plus, as a junior O-4, if you are V2 Divo, you command the single biggest division (200+ sailors) on the boat, and not exactly the shining stars of the Navy, so you have a lot of challenges and that is generally recognised.
Is they ALWAYS have the best admins in port !!! Have you ever heard anyone say: "Let's go hang out with the Reactor Dept?"