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By Commander J. E. Burgess, U. S. Navy, Defense Department Exchange Officer, Bureau of Politico-Military Affairs, Department of State
Naval Aviation:
Keeping the Faith
Once upon a time a small band of zealots came together in the catacombs of the Navy and consecrated a new faith called Naval Aviation. Like most faiths, Naval Aviation has changed. What once were polite differences in emphasis have become schisms. Where once there was unity, we now see splintered sects and cults. Concerned naval aviators are asking themselves what has happened to the faith of their fathers, how can they rekindle the old flame, what must they do to keep the faith?
Some old-timers blame it all on NATOPS and the closed pattern detailing which together ensured lower accident rates and narrowed professional vision. Others blame the long-ago demise of the correspondence course system (although others argue that there never was a decent set of courses in Naval Aviation). Still others blame the World War II training command pipeline system which remains essentially unchanged due to our apparent inability to modernize the aircraft inventory. Not a few blame the false prophets who abounded in the early days of systems analysis. Finally, there are those who suggest we linger too long and too lovingly in our reveries of the splendid successes of the Pacific crusade of the Forties.
Whatever the reasons, few officers in Naval Aviation understand much about the mission of even the squadron in the next ready room, much less the missions of all of the squadrons in the Navy. Half of the Navy’s unrestricted line officers serve in their own almost hermetically sealed "Warfare Specialties,” only dimly aware of the others. Even fewer have a comprehensive view of the totality of the unrestricted line; almost nobody knows much about the half of our naval officers who aren’t in the unrestricted line at all. Fewer still know much about our allies in the other services, which are themselves hardly monolithic.
Midshipman summer cruises and desultory ad hoc lectures aren’t the answers, nor are our grossly inadequate ship and station libraries—largely unused in any case. Many officers have never read comprehensive "Lessons Learned” collections, much less many of the NWP series. The war colleges come too late in the career; for many they never come at all. (In any event, they are a bit too ecumenical for what is needed earlier on.)
Each of the cults and sects within Naval Aviation revolves around a restrictive "Warfare Specialty,” which is often a euphemism for a single aircraft periodically face-lifted over a generation. There is inadequate understanding of the whole, either in the formative years or later. Too often, parochial, or even wrong, decisions are made because too little is known about Naval Aviation and naval warfare.
We should seek to reunify Naval Aviation for only one reason: the original doctrine of unity and integration with the Fleet remains sound. A sense of unity and integration must be built from the ground up; it must start with the junior officer.
It is now time to override the narrow-minded bean counters in and out of uniform, and use this time of peace to build a solid corps of broad- gauged aviation officers who will write and fight the doctrines for the next war.
The basis for renovation is a modern and comprehensive training program. Flight training must be in modern aircraft, and it must be uniform. Every pilot and NFO must receive the same broad-gauged experience, especially carrier qualifications, but including also at least moderate exposure to single engine, multiengine and rotary wing flight. This will cost money—particularly obtaining decent training aircraft and funds to operate them. These funds cannot be taken from already marginal allocations for current programs. It also poses serious challenges in terms of interservice comparisons and budget priorities. But the alternative is progressive narrowing of the very men who will fight the next time.
Postgraduate training must include technical qualification in current fleet aircraft (as in the current system) as well as advanced exposure to, including flights in, aircraft with widely varying missions. No VF pilot or RIO should finish the RAG totally unfamiliar with HS operations, just as no VP pilot should be ignorant of VA tactics, problems, and capabilities. Obviously, no pilot or NFO can fully qualify to fly, much less tactically employ, an aircraft dissimilar from his own, but all should be exposed to at least some of the other mission envelopes, and all of the other doctrines, within Naval Aviation.
A standardized syllabus and a vastly improved and expanded tactical literature system is needed to build and progressively reinforce and expand this initial exposure. A combination of formally scheduled cross-visits, flights,
audio-visual education, correspondence courses, self-study and evaluation is re' quired. We do not need to reinvent the promotion exam system; what we do need is a formal system which will break down our currently autonomous "Aviation Communities.”
At suitable intervals, such as second and subsequent RAG student tours (and especially RAG and TRACOM instructor tours) the employment of Naval Aviation should be studied and planned, using advanced war-gaming ar>d computer simulation techniques. (How many of us are fully aware of the logistic aspects of an air war at sea? How many truly understand the impact of weather?)
In short, we need a planned, career-long system for expanding the horizons of the officers who will lead Naval Aviation in the future. In a Way, we have this in the necessarily restricted CAG training system, and in the effective programs for preparing carrier captains and staffing and preparing carrier group commanders.
But much more is needed at a less intensive, but more pervasive, level to ensure that many more officers are properly prepared for a wide variety of command and staff billets throughout the fleet. Above all, we must seek to butld a wider base from which to choose those who will exercise broad command and direction of Naval Aviation both ashore and at sea.
We also need a better system to administer the changing of aviation specialties so that top-drawer types can hold their heads up if they choose to leave their original community for a tour in another area. There are good historical reasons for limiting such a program, but it should not be exclusionary as it now tends to be. Too, we should rethink our present system of command screening which tends to mortally wound many who choose or are assigned to two different types of "Warfare Specialty” rather than remaining "loyal.”
Many of the steps advocated can be accomplished at little cost: doctrine can be published and circulated cheaply; promising young tigers could be selected to cross-breed in both formal and informal training sessions; and our talented and professional education specialists can easily produce strawman syllabi which would be finalized by fleet tactical personnel. Limited cross-flying should also be possible, particularly in cheaper-to- operate training aircraft—even the obsolete models still flown in the training command and at air stations ashore. It may be years before we can reestablish Naval Aviation as an integrated whole. But we should start moving in that direction now.
GLOSSARY
CAG | Carrier Air Group/ Carrier Air Wing |
HS | Helicopter Antisubmarine Squadron |
NATOPS | Naval Air Training and Operating Procedures Standardization |
NFO | Naval Flight Officer |
NWP | Naval Warfare Publication |
RAG | Replacement Air Group/ Readiness Training Squadron |
RIO | Radar Intercept Officer |
TRACOM | Training Command (Naval Air) |
VA | Attack Squadron |
VF | Fighter Squadron |
VP | Patrol Squadron |
The Observer's Soviet Aircraft Directory
by William Green and Gordon Swanborough
The secrecy enshrouding aircraft development in the Soviet Union for so long after World War II and which, to some degree, has been maintained until today, has served to generate a deep interest in the West in the postwar evolution of both military and civil Soviet aircraft. The Observer's Soviet Aircraft Directory provides for the first time a concise yet comprehensive reference to Soviet aircraft development over the past quarter-century. It details the various Soviet systems of designating aircraft and lists the 120-plus reporting names assigned over the past 20 years by the Air Standards Co-ordinating Committee to Soviet aircraft for use by NATO countries; it illustrates and describes many of the aircraft which competed unsuccessfully with those ordered into production and accordingly assigned western reporting names; it offers detailed information on all aircraft types, both military and civil, known to be currently in service in the Soviet Union, and it includes appendices on the organization and current status of the Soviet Air Forces and the Soviet national airline.
*
A Naval Institute Book Selection
1975. 255 pages. Illustrated with more than 200 photos. Index.
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