The statement above may become an open breach in the wall of military thought regarding appropriations of our money for national defense. During the war years the Armed Force was given what it needed without a yea or nay from the taxpayer. And, obviously, no accounting for it could be publicly made.
This method of doing business fostered a tendency in some military minds to assume that the Armed Force should be the sole judge of what money it needed, and how it was to be spent. This tendency has grown up into a husky conviction that the Armed Force, alone of government departments, should not be held to a strict accounting to the U. S. public. This method obviously should apply to secret phases of research and development, but it certainly should not apply to the much greater activity of the Armed Force in carrying out its routine business.
It is refreshing then to have a Navy admiral come right out in print and declare that his part of the Navy is a government business with taxpayers for stockholders, who deserve an honest accounting of what is being done with the money they turned over to him to produce new Naval Aviators, train aviation technicians, and maintain the efficiency of the Naval Air Reserve.
A look at one phase of this sprawling command—the production of new Naval Aviators—gives you a good idea of how a military operation can be run with the efficiency and economy of a successful commercial enterprise.
At the Naval Air Station, Pensacola, Florida, the raw material is received. This consists of bachelors between the ages of 18 and 25 who have agreed to remain unmarried until they are commissioned after completing flight training; who have obligated themselves to four years of active duty unless they fail in training; and who have completed two years of college or have an equivalent education. Most of these men enter straight from civil life, the rest are Navy enlisted men who, by their demonstrated ability, have been allowed to transfer into the flight training program. Every one of them must meet the same high standard of mental, moral and physical ability. And every one of them is a potential expenditure of about $2,000 a month of public money. Since it will take a man 18 months to get his wings, he represents a nice piece of change.
Training naval aviation cadets of this category has just started. However, some unique methods have already been put into effect to insure that money is not wasted in teaching a man to fly. As in any production-line industry. Naval Air Training is continually subjecting its product to searching inspections as it advances through the plant
In professional language, a man who fails to get his wings is “attrited,” but such a man is actually a bad debt to the U.S. public. To keep these bad debts off the Navy accounting sheet, a battery of Ph.D.’s, psychiatrists, especially trained naval officers, and civilian experts operate at Pensacola to provide a high level of intelligent guidance to the would-be Naval Aviator. Almost as soon as he comes through the main gate he is put through a rugged session of probes—probes to find out what his potential weaknesses are. Experts in the field of test and measurement pry into his ability and come out with specific recommendations as to the types of extra work he will have to do in order to complete the course.
Paralleling this investigation of the raw material there is a constant program of standardization in plant operation. Here again the approach is not being made by enthusiastic but untrained people. Top flight educators are insuring that every cadet gets the same amount and kind of instruction and that every examination of his progress is a just one unaffected by personal bias. Whenever a cadet’s progress begins to falter it is immediately spotted and the Navy’s “remedial action” takes him in hand. This may mean night classes in ground school, extra instruction, more time in the airplane, a talk with the psychiatrist, or an opportunity to go and relax. Pensacola is trying to graduate every man who enters the program.
This goal of 100% use of raw material is paralleled by Reeves’ insistence on 100% efficient operation of the huge and intricate production line. (He discovered, one day, that he had 45 flight instructors more than he needed for the load of students on board. Those 45 went, the next day, on temporary duty to commands which could use them.) As another example, the method of alternating ground school and flight was formerly standard practice. A cadet studied half a day and flew the other half. Not any more. It costs a lot more money to let a student fly an airplane than it does to let him fly a desk. Since an aviation cadet’s course in Ground School is an impressive education in itself, he must prove his mental ability there before he is allowed to get really expensive.
The program is divided into four phases. The first is Pre-flight—Ground School. For four months and about 625 scheduled hours of classroom or practical work, the cadet learns about weather, air regulations, communications, engineering, gunnery, principles of flight and other subjects related to safe, efficient and economical operation of aircraft.
And navigation. Flying wing on the man who knows the way has never been accepted by the Navy as a sound navigational method. It doesn’t fit into the kinds of flying the Navy has to do, so cadets get 150 hours of intensive instruction in Navigation while in Ground School, and these are only part of the nearly 1,000 hours they get before they graduate.
That’s not all. A Naval Aviator has got to be an officer able to lead and be led. He’s got to become a man fit for the public trust he assumes. “Every man in uniform is a public servant. Every cadet going through this program is going to learn that fact so thoroughly that he won’t forget it—as some of us have in the past.”
After four months and new shoe soles, flight training begins. This is the Basic stage, and here again Pensacola has gone modern. Perhaps the citizens of the town regret the passing of the Yellow Perils which once floated lazily around their horizon, and object to the changeable pitch props of the SNJ “Texans,” but the Texan produces an operationally-trained pilot faster and better. So the beloved N3N’s and N2S’s are in the hands of War Assets and all Basic training is in SNJ’s.
Basic training is done at one of the outlying fields, which are complete air stations in themselves. The cadet leaves the Main Station, bag and baggage, and begins about 28 weeks of flying in which he will acquire some 175 hours in the air. From primary and acrobatics, he progresses to instruments and radio range flying. Competent in these phases, he goes on to formation, gunnery and night flying, combat techniques and cross country.
By the time he has about six months of air work he is ready for the BIG thrill—carrier qualification. First he gets “bounce” drill landing on a carrier deck outline painted on the runway. Around and around he goes until he begins to believe that the man down there with the flags—the landing signal officer—has seen airplanes land before.
At last he tries it on the deck of a ship at sea. At present the light carrier Wright is used for carrier qualifications with two destroyers to pick up the Dilberts (very scarce) who go in the drink. After six good landings in the gear, the student is qualified.
At this point of progress there’s a fork in the road. Some cadets go for training in carrier aircraft, others to patrol planes. This is Advanced Training, and is given at Corpus Christi, Texas. It takes about 14 more weeks for each student, whether he is training in F8F’s or PB4Y’s. However, the carrier pilots receive a final and additional 2 week brush- up period to re-qualify aboard a carrier in the operational type aircraft to which they will be assigned when they go to the Fleet.
It is a long, hard, interesting eighteen months. From reveille at 6 a.m. until taps at 10 p.m. the aviation cadet is bird-dog busy, for much is required of him. His pay is $75 a month (which pending legislation may up to $115), but he is provided with food, lodging, medical and dental care, insurance free, and is given $150 to pay for his cadet uniforms. When he is commissioned ensign (or second lieutenant if he enters Marine aviation) his pay is $291 a month and he begins his tour of 30 months’ obligated duty. If, during this time he shows the ability and the caliber required of an officer in the regular Navy or Marine Corps, he may apply for transfer from the Naval Reserve. If he desires to return to civilian life, he remains in the Reserve (where he may draw up to $500 a year to keep his hand in) to provide a backlog of defense for America.
When an ex-aviation cadet pins on his wings and becomes a Naval Aviator he has a right to be proud of his accomplishment and the right to look forward to duty in the Fleet with confidence. And the Command to- which he will report can expect him to fit immediately into the operating schedule, for he will be completely trained.
This doctrine of turning out a product with all accessories is justified. Training requires particular skills and equipment which operating commands in the Fleet should not be required to have. It is cheaper and better to train a man completely in an established training program than to send him to the Fleet lacking in skills which his command must supply him at the expense of vital operational time or—in some cases— simply let him do without.
Admiral Reeves has long been called—out of his hearing—“Black Jack” but this nickname is being changed to “Cost Analysis.” In discussing a 74 page booklet he produced called Operating Costs, he admitted that as soon as he announces how much it costs to produce an aviator people are going to start shooting at the figure. “Before they do, though,” Reeves said, “I hope they’ll back up and take a good look at it because it’s an honest figure and we don’t want any ricochets.”
When he says then that it costs about $2,000 a month to train a Naval Aviator, it is no horseback estimate.
Here are some of the major items included in that costs:
Training and Station Aircraft—operation, maintenance, overhaul, depreciation, repair, losses.
Compensation—the pay of students, instructors, civilians—in effect, the pay of all hands involved.
Station Support—this includes 12 subheads ranging from plant operation to search and rescue. Cost of maintenance, upkeep, repair, plant improvement and replacement at Pensacola and Corpus Christi are charged against training a Naval Aviator.
Ship Support—what it costs to pay the people aboard the carrier and the destroyers, as well as the material required to keep them operating.
“In other words,” Admiral Reeves said, “the wages of that man cutting the grass out there are charged against the cost of training that cadet going to Ground School. So are the wages of the man who sharpened the lawn mower. What it cost the Navy to send that lieutenant’s family down here are included. My own salary is in there too.”
He doesn’t say that $2,000 is the lowest price we can pay. The purpose of cost analysis is to find out whether money is being used for maximum efficient economy, and the system has only been in effect since July. “All we’ve done so far is to batten down some obvious rat holes, but as soon as we reach our full quota of 2,600 cadets a year the cost should come down. As it is, at half our load, we still have to maintain practically full facilities so that we aren’t benefiting yet from the rule of ‘the more you make of a thing the less each one costs.’”
The booklet, Operating Costs, hasn’t got word on the outside of it saying “Confidential” or even “Restricted.” Anybody can go look at it. The public put up the money, so the public has a right to know what happened to it as long as Naval Air Training does not have to be a strategic secret. Reeves thinks that this idea of letting the taxpayer in on what happened to his money is good for two reasons. One, if the military spent the money wisely the taxpayer will feel better about the whole thing. Two, it might act as a restraint against military waste.
“Unfortunately,” Reeves remarked, “it doesn’t make any difference to a rat hole whether one dollar or one billion dollars of national defense goes down it. The Armed Force has been guilty of gross waste in the past but this does not justify waste in the future. The life of every citizen of this country may depend on the public’s feeling of trust in the way the military handles its money. If we, the Armed Force, can’t be trusted, we won’t get the money. And you know what that means when we, as a nation, start looking down the wrong end of a gun barrel.”