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“I consider the average pilot in an operational Air Force squadron to be better trained for . . . combat than his counterpart in a Navy squadron.”
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Every once in a while, an individual is afforded the opportunity to observe complex organizations such as the Air Force and the Navy's air arm from a relatively objective point of view. Such an °Pportunity is provided by the Navy-Air Force officer exchange program. The view from outside each °rganization can be quite different from the view from within. With a taste of each, a wholly new V|ew can emerge.
My perspective is somewhat limited, because my exPerience has been wholly restricted to ground attack units, but I feel I have had the opportunity to work with the best of both organizations: those fiying single-seat, light attack aircraft. I flew A-7Es f°r the Navy on two Mediterranean deployments ar>d numerous exercises, accumulating a total of 285 fraps (shipboard arrested landings) and 750 hours *P A-7s. On my exchange tour with the Air Force,
I have flown 400 hours in the A-7D, 120 hours in the A-10, and participated in numerous deployments and exercises.
The scope of this article is limited to a discussion of what I see as combat readiness—the ability to go to war today and survive. I will not attempt to discuss or compare safety programs, maintenance procedures, or any of the thousands of other differences which exist between the Navy and Air Force. I want to look at one common denominator: combat readiness as measured by aircrew training.
Although this is difficult for a Navy man to profess, and some Air Force people may not believe they’re reading it, I consider the average pilot in an operational Air Force squadron to be better trained for his most likely employment in combat than his counterpart in a Navy squadron. Of course, there are exceptions because of the outstanding and lack-
Seen in Air Force flight gear and as a naval aviator with VA-66, the author recalls: “I have never returned from an Air Force mission feeling I was lucky to have survived. I did feel that way on several dark and rainy nights in the Mediterranean. ... In the Air Force, landing is just something one does at the end of each flight.”
adaisical officers found in each service, but, in general, that is my observation.
Of course, the common starting point from which to measure aircrew training must be that both Air Force and Navy pilots are of equal skill, flying aptitude, and knowledge when they begin. After all, they are drawn from the same sample of the general population, and both groups are highly motivated and love to fly. So why is one group of fliers better prepared than the other? Let’s begin with a general comparison of the training they receive prior to reporting to their operational squadrons.
Early Flight Training: Air Force undergraduate pilot training and Navy flight training, though both are designed to take a student who has never flown and turn him into a fairly accomplished pilot, are structured quite differently. In the Navy’s “pipeline” training command, students branch off early to pursue their specialties—whether they will fly props, helos, or jets. Since practically everyone in the jet pipeline is going to fly a fighter/attack-type aircraft, that pipeline is somewhat like a combination of the Air Force’s undergraduate pilot training and fighter lead-in. A major difference, however, is that the Navy’s program has more flexibility. In the Air Force undergraduate pilot training, a student is assigned a class and graduation date when he first enters the program. It is a major administrative procedure to hold him back to another class if he has trouble (as well as a black mark against him for practically his entire career). As a result, weaker pilots are sometimes rolled along with their class and get the rubber stamp as “qualified” at the end.
In the Navy’s program, it is not uncommon to hold back students, or even groups of students, if they are having difficulty in a particular area. The result is a pilot who is stronger overall at the end of training. In addition, the Navy student, throughout his training, flies more tactical flights and more solo flights than his Air Force counterpart, including solo weapons delivery (bombs, rockets, and strafing), solo air combat maneuvering, and solo air-to- air gunnery. The entire carrier qualification phase is also solo. By the time he gets his wings, a Navy pilot is an extremely confident and capable aviator. When this is followed by an additional 6 months/100 hours in type (A-7, F-14, etc.) in the RAG (replacement air group), the naval aviator is considerably better trained upon reporting to his fleet squadron than is his Air Force counterpart reporting to his operational squadron.
From that point on, though, the naval aviator’s readiness actually declines through disuse of his combat skills, while the Air Force pilot’s improves because of constant honing. The main differences I have found to account for this disparity are the added dimension of shipboard operations, the number of nonflying “collateral” duties assigned in each service, and training deficiencies/misdirected training existing in the Navy’s operational squadrons.
Shipboard Operations: Because of the difficulty of the approach and landing phase of flight in the Navy, a phase which is routine in the Air Force, other aspects of flight and training seem to suffer- Because carrier operations are so difficult, that is where the Navy has for many years put its training emphasis. With the Air Force, I have flown some extremely complex and challenging missions, such as Red Flag and Maple Flag missions, which were invaluable for their combat training, but were not, in my opinion, as difficult or as dangerous as making night carrier landings.* I have never returned from an Air Force mission feeling I was lucky to have survived. I did feel that way on several dark and rainy nights in the Mediterranean, especially during my first cruise. Practically that whole cruise was spent learning to operate safely around the ship’ first as a wingman and then as a section (element) leader. Study of such things as tactics, electronic countermeasures, and ship recognition was secondary to learning safe procedures around the “boat.'
That’s just where the Navy put its emphasis. The central point of discussion in our squadron ready *Red Flag and Maple Flag are realistic combat exercises run several timeS a year by the U. S. Air Force and the Canadian Air Force, respectively- Missions are planned and flown against targets defended by surface-to-a'r missile and antiaircraft artillery radar emitters, F-5 aggressor aircraft, and extensive communications jamming.
room was always the “greenie board” on which everyone’s landing grades were prominently posted. We took great pains to divide the squadron into landing teams and compute the team averages on an almost daily basis to keep track of which team was going to “buy” at the squadron party in the aext port. (Practically nothing was said about how We were all going to “buy it” if we had to go to War!) In recent discussions with experienced naval aviators, 1 found that we all look back at our first cruise with alarm. It is hard to believe that we were deployed in a position where we would probably have been the first U. S. forces into a Middle East trouble spot, and we knew so little about electronics countermeasures, electronics counter-countermeasures, enemy surface-to-air missiles/antiaircraft ar- tillery/airborne interceptors, and tactics.
. Nonflying Ditties: A Navy squadron is complete ln itself with operations, administration, and maintenance combined into a unit capable of completing the myriad tasks involved in moving on and off the ship with 230 enlisted men, 20 officers, 12 aircraft, and all the support equipment, spare parts, and supplies. Because of the limited space on board ship, Navy squadrons do not have the luxury of having a great number of support officers assigned to assist with these many tasks. The pilots, therefore, are the squadron’s officers and thus its administrators and managers. Every pilot has a full-time Job, often with 25-30 enlisted men or more working directly for him. That job is first and foremost, because if it does not get done, the squadron cannot deploy and meet its operational commitments. Studying and preparing for flight come second.
As an example of the type of jobs assigned, my first one upon reporting to an A-7 squadron as a hrand-new “nugget” lieutenant (junior grade) was ,n the maintenance department as the line division officer. I had about 25 plane captains (crew chiefs) and troubleshooters working for me on the flight deck. They launched and recovered aircraft and Performed daily, turnaround, and special inspections on them. As their division officer, I was responsible for their training, scheduling, well-being, discipline, and their evaluation reports. My “collateral” duty was squadron human relations officer (HRO) in charge of writing and maintaining the command’s affirmative action plan and holding regular human relations council meetings.
Approximately every ten months, the squadron rotated jobs among the junior officers to give each a broader view of the workings of the squadron and better prepare him for future command. My second Job in the squadron was as personnel officer. Collateral duties that went along with this job were retention officer, educational services officer, and Postal officer. The paperwork and headaches in those jobs are too numerous to list, so let me just say that the job consumed a substantial amount of my time.
My third and last job in the squadron was finally one related to being an attack pilot: weapons training officer. As a one-man weapons shop, though, I was often overloaded with routine record-keeping and analysis of aircraft bombing systems. The opportunity to research and teach new tactics just was not there. Each of these jobs was handled, of course, in addition to flying at least once and usually twice a day while deployed. Since briefing, flying, and debriefing often consumed ten hours a day, the rest of my waking hours were spent working on administrative duties.
The Navy emphasizes much more strongly than the Air Force that one is an officer first and an aviator second. If that seems unbelievable, just look at the Navy’s officer fitness report form which has one block to grade airmanship out of about 23 total blocks graded. In naval aviation, flying is treated almost as a collateral duty.
Operational Training Deficiencies: A Navy squadron trains in cycles geared toward preparing for the next major shipboard deployment. Although necessary because the squadron deploys with the ship, the cycle, as it now exists, is not conducive to thorough combat training for the aviators. A typical cycle may begin at the end of a six-month deployment and the 30-day stand-down period which follows it. The first two or three months are dedicated to basic weapons delivery training and meeting the competitive exercise requirements laid on by higher commands. After that, the squadron and ship are involved for three months or so with their workups and readiness inspections for deployment. While this should be the time for extensive work in tactics, it is not. The squadron will probably move on and off the ship three or four times during this period. These moves involve an incredible amount of time and effort, including night field carrier landing practice for all the pilots before each shipboard period. Thus, during periods ashore, flight operations continue until 0200 or 0300 nightly. Pilots usually come into the squadron in the afternoon, if not earlier, to work on their administrative duties, and then “bounce” at night.
Much of the time during “at-sea periods” is consumed with constant launch and recovery drills to ensure that the ship and air wing integrate effectively and smoothly. By the time the squadron gets to the final event in its training cycle, the six-month major deployment, the only flying area in which the pilots are really proficient is carrier landings. Additionally, since new pilots are assigned to the squadron at any point in the cycle, the overall effectiveness of the training cycle is even further reduced.
The deficiencies in the Navy’s flying training continue while deployed. Our deployed flying is not always conducive to developing and practicing tactics, because many of our missions are operational in nature, with training of secondary importance. On SSSC (surface search and surveillance) missions, for instance, we are tasked to search particular sectors around the carrier to update her surface picture of all the ships in the area. Bombing missions often have secondary importance with only a smoke bomb dropped in the water to use as a target. In addition, since the air wing does not have support from land-based tankers or have the space on board to have a squadron of “tankers,” one of the A-7’s primary roles around the ship becomes that of airborne tanker. A refueling store is hung onto the A- 7 and is used to refuel other aircraft by the probe and drogue method. Lieutenants (0-3) and below can expect at least one quarter of their sorties to be tankers. Although this mission is required for the ship and air wing to perform their mission safely, there is no tactical training involved whatsoever. So, at this point in their training cycle, the Navy’s best tactical aviators have spent their last six months “honing their combat skills” through four basic missions: bounce, SSSC, bomb the smoke, and pass gas!
When we do discuss and fly tactics, it is apparent that the Navy’s combat training is geared toward a big war in which we must first strive to neutralize the Soviet fleet. The primary emphasis is on war at sea since establishing sea control is seen as the first step before power projection ashore can begin. Antiship strikes always consume the largest amount of study and planning time during major exercises. Beyond that, our nuclear strike role takes up a large portion of any study on interdiction-type missions. Conventional interdiction missions are few and far between and usually result in a Southeast Asia-type alpha strike in which 25 or 30 aircraft rendezvous over the ship, fly in a huge formation to the target area at medium altitude, and roll in four at a time. It is an outdated tactic left over from Vietnam where we had mastery of the air and where the only ground threats were antiaircraft artillery and SA-2 missiles.
Should World War III break out, antiship strikes will obviously be an important mission of the Navy since naval aviators are much better trained for war at sea than are Air Force pilots. Short of World War III, however, the Navy is not adequately preparing its aviators for limited operations in which tactical interdiction sorties would be required for the United States to intercede in trouble spots. Recent history has shown that U. S. presidents are quick to move aircraft carriers into troubled areas as a show of force, especially in areas not accessible from land bases. This, then, is the most likely combat situation facing the U. S. Navy today, and it is the one for which its carrier pilots are least prepared!
Air Force Continuation Training: There are several reasons why Air Force pilots reach higher levels of combat readiness than their Navy counterparts, and they all add up to the fact that the Air Force puts the emphasis on aircrew training and provides the time and opportunity for pilots to achieve higher states of combat readiness. Pilots are not distracted from that goal, for instance, by too much emphasis on landing the aircraft or learning procedures around the airfield. In the Air Force, you don’t have to psyche yourself up, concentrate, and work to the exclusion of other aspects of your job just to make safe and consistent landings. The criteria for a safe landing are much broader, and as a result, landing is just something one does at the end of each flight!
Nonflying duties are also kept somewhat under control. Several years ago, the Air Force reassigned many of the collateral duties pilots had been performing. The majority of the jobs in Air Force squadrons now do not require as much time as those in Navy squadrons. There are perhaps seven or eight jobs in an Air Force squadron which entail substantial duties. Other than squadron commander and operations officer, these would be assistant operations officer, training officer, scheduler, flight commander, and maybe the standardization/evalu- ation officer and the weapons officer. So what about the other 20-30 pilots in the squadron? They are assigned as assistants to those already mentioned or have jobs such as mobility officer or life support officer for which the activity comes in spurts. The result of these reduced collateral duties, of course, is that the time is available for study and discussion of weapons and tactics. Whether or not it’s used for that is up to the individual in many cases, but with the number of combat veterans in most Air Force squadrons, which seems to be more than are still in Navy squadrons, I have found that tactics are often discussed with great interest.*
An Air Force squadron’s operational training is not dependent on a cycle. It is steady and continuous throughout the year, with new pilots starting with the basics and achieving progressively higher levels of proficiency. The Air Force’s 51-50 series training manuals delineate in great detail the training required for pilots to reach each successive level- What’s more, nearly every flight is oriented toward combat training. You will never, for instance, find A-7s or A-10s from England Air Force Base (where I am stationed) flying surface surveillance missions in Louisiana. Furthermore, flying the tanker is left up to tanker pilots, as it ought to be! Occasionally, the necessity to log graduated combat capability sorties may hinder experimentation somewhat, but all in all. Air Force pilots are much better off being
*The Air Force's pilot retention rate is higher than that of the Navy.
able to concentrate on their specialty on almost every flight.
Finally, the one aspect of the Air Force training which is, perhaps, the single most important advantage over Navy training is the opportunity to participate in Red Flag and Maple Flag exercises on a regular basis. Those programs are doing more to improve the combat readiness of the Air Force than any other single factor. The combination of the deployment, unfamiliar terrain, and the challenge of Penetrating an integrated air defense system consisting of interceptors, an array of surface-to-air missile and antiaircraft artillery radars, and communications jamming is unsurpassed for realistic, effective training. Navy units occasionally participate in Red Flag on a one-time basis, but the majority of naval aviators never get the opportunity.
Recommendations: The emphasis on shipboard operations is a necessary evil that will always be with us. Commanding officers and operations officers should do their utmost, however, to decrease (he emphasis on landing the aircraft and increase the emphasis on combat training. Catapult shots and arrested landings are not the only objectives at sea. Remember: the sole reason for that aircraft carrier’s existence is for the three attack squadrons to be in a position, with properly trained pilots, to put ordnance on enemy targets. Without the proper, continuous training, this cannot be accomplished.
Proper training has to begin with adequate study time. Time must be allotted for pilots to study thoroughly the complex modern weapons they will carry and the integrated air defense systems they will have to penetrate. The extensive nonflying duties now Performed by naval aviators must be reduced, or adequate tactical training will never come about. If necessary, an administrative officer could be assigned to each squadron, and the majority of the piaintenance jobs would be turned over to the limited duty officers and chief petty officers.
The Navy’s training cycle needs a thorough revamping. As several air wings have discovered recently, conducting all work-ups and type training exercises at one time is much more efficient than [noving on and off the ship three or four times, and it is the only way that allows for any useful tactical training to be accomplished. As the situation now stands, squadrons are max’d out just making the moves to and from the ship and staying current for carrier operations. One work-up period, instead of several, will alleviate these two demanding, timeconsuming factors and leave more time for air wings to concentrate on their tactical development.
In looking at their tactical doctrine, most air wings will find the need to emphasize conventional interdiction strikes of the type expected in a limited operation. For a major war; with war-at-sea strikes of primary importance, the wings are probably well prepared. However, a call for strikes against selected targets in an area with no sea-based threat, but a substantial integrated air defense system, would be met with some consternation and would probably result in a Southeast Asia-type alpha strike. Most attack squadrons just have not had the time to study thoroughly and practice the latest low- altitude conventional strike tactics—not to mention developing their own.
Strike tactics should be practiced on every flight possible. When deployed, more efficient use must be made of the sorties available. If or when the KS-3A tanker hits the fleet, the KA-7s should immediately be taken out of the tanker business, and the number of KA-6s should be reduced as much as possible. The KS-3A should be able to give away its excess gas at the beginning of the cycle and still perform its primary mission of searching for submarines at maximum endurance airspeed. A-7s, besides not being able to carry bombs with a tanker store, are not able to perform a viable, tactically oriented secondary mission at the low speeds required for maximum endurance. Thus, tactically speaking, the one-quarter of an A-7 pilot’s sorties that are flown as tankers are totally wasted.
As a final suggestion, the Naval Military Personnel Command should work the manpower management problem better. Our present system does not take into account the effect of assigning new pilots to a squadron in the latter stages of its training cycle. This practice not only puts an excessive amount of pressure on the new pilots, it also reduces the overall readiness level of the wing. With prior planning, and an eye toward carrier deployment schedules, it should be possible to move people in and out of the squadron between training cycles—at the end of major deployments. Thus, when an aviator is assigned to a fleet squadron, he knows that he will remain in that squadron for two complete training cycles. A relatively large turnover at that point will be easily handled since the entire shore-based training cycle is still ahead.
Without doubt, the Navy has some of the most talented aviators in the world. With an open mind toward improving their training, an already strong force can be made unquestionably the number one strike force in the world.
a Lieutenant Smith was graduated from the Naval Academy in 1974 with a B.S. degree in aerospace engineering. After successfully completing flight training, he received his wings in September 1976. From 1977 to 1979. he served in VA-66, making two Mediterranean cruises in the USS Independence (CV-62) and working up the USS Eisenhower (CVN-69) for that ship's first Mediterranean deployment. From October 1979 to the present, he has served as an exchange pilot in the Air Force’s 23rd Tactical Fighter Wing at Alexandria. Louisiana.