No, not THAT kind of naps…
These NAPs are Enlisted Naval Aviation Pilots…
The Navy, Marines and Coast Guard have a LONG tradition of Enlisted pilots dating back to 1916. HERE is the early history of the program. I was lucky enough as a young enlisted to know the last Navy NAP, ACCM Bob (NAP) Jones, when I was stationed at GLYNCO. I also met MGY/SGTs Robert M. Lurie and Patrick J. O’Neil when they flew down to GLYNCO to meet with ACCM Jones and ADCM “Pappy” Harbs who was my CMC. Between them I think they had over 30,000 flight hours and had flown everything from props in and right after WWII to the latest jets… I remember Lurie’s favorite airplane was an F-8 Corsair, and I think he was one of the high time USMC pilots PERIOD in the F-8!
Why am I dredging up this old stuff???
Well, the program is back, yet again… This is at least the FOURTH evolution of Enlisted pilots, and this time it is for Drones!
I’m sure Everett over at Island Voice will chime in on this one, since he was in the first group to fly the DASHs off ships (and he has some stories about that!!!)
This was sent by a friend who was this Senior Chief’s CO in VC-6 back in the day when the SC was a young enlisted…
From CHINFO-
NAVAL AIR STATION PATUXENT RIVER, Md.- If the Navy starts training scores of enlisted to fly unmanned aircraft, they may want to thank a 37-year old Texan.
Senior Chief Aviation Electronics Technician (SW/AW) Stephen Diets is the only enlisted flying the MQ-8B Fire Scout, an unmanned helicopter. He’s a test case – part of a push from former Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Gary Roughead to determine whether a commission is necessary to succeed in naval aviation’s next chapter.
But Diets isn’t the first enlisted to fly an unmanned aerial vehicle. He and others have piloted the RQ-2A Pioneer, a small unmanned plane used for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance missions, which was in the fleet from 1986 to 2007.
As an external pilot, he was responsible for takeoffs and landings; it’s similar to flying a large remote-controlled airplane, he said.
His career began with the H-60 Seahawk, the fleet’s workhorse helicopter. Today, he’s the fleet liaison for the Fire Scout program and advises engineers on improvements and operations. But he’s also taking questions from Navy brass to help them decide whether enlisted should fly UAVs.
Diets won’t have any official say in the decision; he’s merely providing leaders with his perspective, expertise and feedback. He believes that enlisted will not only make good UAV operators, but the country’s fiscal constraints will make enlisted a more frugal choice to fly several types of unmanned systems.
Just Another Student
Before Diets took the Fire Scout’s controls, he completed a 21-day course at a civilian flight school where he trained on Cessnas and earned a private pilot’s license. After that, he and officer pilots from Air Test and Evaluation Squadron 1 completed a five-week Fire Scout course.
“They didn’t treat me any different, and that was something I asked for from the get-go. I’ll let them know if I’m having trouble with something, but don’t extend my course out,” he said.
He headed to the frigate McInerney in spring 2010, during the last month of the ship’s deployment for counter-narcotic operations in Latin America. It was the first time he would operate the Fire Scout at sea, and only one thing was on his mind.
“Don’t screw it up,” he said, laughing.
He flew the aircraft once or twice on that deployment and spent the rest of his time training Seahawk maintainers on repairing the Fire Scout and assuring it was safe for flight. He later deployed with the frigate Halyburton in January for its seven-month deployment in 5th and 6th Fleet, including operations near Libya.
That time, he spent more time at the controls.
His work was identical to the work performed by officers – same missions, same procedures. They had a Northrop Grumman instructor on hand to help them with some of the UAV’s operations that they hadn’t fully mastered.
With two Fire Scout deployments under his belt, and countless hours working on the Fire Scout, Diets said enlisted are capable of operating that UAV and others.
“I think we’ve proven that enlisted guys can operate Fire Scout and I would go even further to say [the Unmanned Combat Air System] coming up and [the Broad Area Maritime Surveillance aircraft],” he said, respectively referring to a UAV that will take off and land on carriers, and the Navy’s version of the Global Hawk.
Officials at Naval Air Forces and Naval Air Systems Command did not answer a list of questions about their deliberations on allowing enlisted to operate UAVs. However, previous statements about Diets’ performance and the future of unmanned systems indicate that they’re largely supportive of enlisted operators at the controls.
“I think Senior Chief Diets demonstrated an ability to do it,” said Paul Achille, deputy program manager for the Fire Scout Program Office in an August interview.
Beyond Diets, it shows that more enlisted can do it, he said.
Rear Adm. William Shannon, the program executive officer for unmanned aviation and strike weapons, said “very, very capable enlisted Sailors” should eventually fly UAVs or he and others in his office have “absolutely failed in our jobs.”
Others, like Lawrence Schuette, director of innovation at the Office of Naval Research, said using enlisted is the only way to make unmanned systems affordable.
Creating A UAV Career Path
Diets said he thinks a new rating will be required for enlisted UAV operators, and those Sailors will be qualified to operate the Fire Scout as well as the broad-area maritime surveillance aircraft and the carrier-launched unmanned combat air system.
A common control system that uses identical toggles for several types of UAVs will help make this possible. He said he feels that operators should be at least a second-tour, senior E-5. His background with the Pioneer and H-60s made him a good fit to operate the Fire Scout, he said. He doesn’t recommend that future enlisted UAV operators go through the same training pipeline he completed. For one, his training process was compressed so he could be ready for a fast-approaching deployment. Also, enlisted operators will need supplemental training to make up for the tactical expertise their officer counterparts developed in the cockpit, he said.
Beyond training, Sailors need to have certain skills, he said. The biggest is the ability to mentally visualize three-dimensional spaces to create an imaginary map while flying unmanned aircraft.
“Anybody could do it as long as they could mentally separate all of those things out. And motivation. This ain’t easy. That last deployment was the most challenging deployment I’ve done in my 18 years,” he said.
Personally, I’m glad to see this, as it yet again proves that the Navy (and all the other services) continue to get outstanding people who do an outstanding job!
Go Navy!!! 🙂
How will the current Navy officer culture react?
So senior enlisted can fly as well as officers. Imagine that.
Snark aside, I applaud the Navy for recognizing the untapped potential of ALL its personnel. Bravo!
I always thought the officer requirement for pilot was an conceit of the officers more than a real requirement.
Could this “NAP” thing be just because “real” pilots don’t fly drones?
I’ve never understood why we insist that only officers can fly aircraft. The Army had a long tradition of taking good, smart enlisted soldiers and sending them to helicopter school. When they graduated, they were warrant officers. Didn’t make no sense. Same guys, but they have to be officers. I say give them a strip promotion and let’em fly.
Flying those UAVs can’t be any more complicated than driving an ROV around a well head in 5,000 feet of water – and using the manipulators to perform work. And you don’t need to be a college grad to do that.
Works for me. We were training enlisted Pioneer pilots at Huachuca back in the 1990’s, and I didn’t see any difference between them and the officer Predator pilots when it came to skills.
Hell, with Today’s X-Box Generation, they’d probably do an Outstanding Job.
No 20/20 vision requirement for drones either! 🙂
WSF- The only ones that will have a problem are the USNA ring knockers…
Rev- Yep, like I said, this is the 4th time the Navy has used enlisteds as pilots-
Alan- Part of the issue to is the vision requirement. Drones don’t require 20/20 like a jet does.
Paw- we’ve done it before, three of the five enlisted on my crew from the 70’s all ended up as aviators, myself (regular line), a NAVCAD (enlisted promoted to officer on getting pilot wings), and an Enlisted Commisioning Program (ECP) entry who got his commission just prior to flight school. All of us had 11 years in the Navy when we got our wings.
PE- True, but the other side of the coin is ability to command, e.g. promote, doing more than flying, eventually potential command of squadron (what usually held enlisteds back was the lack of education, since most CO slots required advanced degrees)
DB/Les/Crucis- you are ALL correct!
Can I have a regular nap until my foggy brain can process this?
Snigs- Sure 🙂 Get better soon!
If memory serves, it was mostly enlisted guys that operated the old DASH drones. DASH was way harder to operate than Firescout, simply because the level of automation was orders of magnitude less mature.
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Shadow- You are correct! Everett was one of those operators, and I’m trying to get him to do a post on it 🙂 We almost got knocked out of the sky by one off Nam…
Hey Alan, you’d be surprised how many airline drivers also fly R/C planes! From slow flying trainers to jets that travel up to 400 kts. You need really fast reflexes to that standing on the ground!
Shadow, I look at the gear I now use to fly a $4-5K plane and I can hold it in my hand. Those old DASH electronics had a vertical station on the fwd.Stbd. corner of the flight deck and was as big as a large suitcase. Had a roller type wheel to control altitude and a single stick to control pitch and roll and twist the handle to induce yaw. It was primitive compared to nowadays! And it induced a large amount of fear in the flight deck crew when that thing was coming back aboard! Only about 10 feet blade clearance to the hangar from the blade tips.
Seems to me I remember hearing that the reason the services went to an all-Officer flying corps was because equipment had gotten so expensive, an enlisted man could no longer pay off damages on a report of survey in his lifetime.
Now, of course, things have gotten more expensive by a geometric factor, so I’m not sure that matters anymore. (The B-2 Bomber is worth more than its weight in Gold, literally. Only GOD could afford to pay for wrecking one.)
What’s great about these UAV’s has already been indicated by others-
They’ll be able to put a game controller in someone’s hands and figure out if they can do the job before they ever put man or machine at risk.
Who can argue that’s not better than our present system?
I got to meet Master Chief Jones at Chase Field in the Summer of 1977. His C-131 was nosed into our hangar for some engine work. Blew a cylinder on number one, if I remember correctly.
Back about 1980 or so there was the LDO Aviator Program to fill those shipboard billets in the Air Departments of Carriers. We did have more of them back then.
Linked at both of my places for ya shipmate!
Looking for Nap Jones’ son Paul Jones USNA 1980, a classmate,
Thanks, [email protected]