What Pilot Fighter is talking about is certainly correct. Historically, USN (and USMC, by extension) NFOs are treated FAR better as aviation crewmembers than USAF Navigator-rated persons are; and this even extends to career/command opportunities within aviation units in the respective services. NFOs do far more of a co-pilot type duty in Navy tactical aircraft than USAF Navigator-rated people do (of all disciplines: EWO, WSO, RN, Nav); whereas in larger aircraft such as P-3s and the like, they are more like the traditional USAF "table" Navigators.
In the Navy, and as PF alludes to, the S-3 became the first aircraft that an NFO had flight controls in front of him. Naval tactical aircraft don't have dual flight controls, with the exception of RAG F/A-18B/Ds where an IP trains another pilot (F-4/F-14s still never had them). But for fleet aircraft, the NFO has no flying controls: B/Ns in an A-6 right seat had no flight controls, neither do ECMOs in the right seat of an EA-6 or WSOs in back of an F/A-18D/F, nor did RIOs in F-4/F-14s, or RANs in RA-5Cs. Other NFOs wouldn't normally have flight controls in front of them as they're not necessarily in the cockpit seats in front of controls, such as E-2/E-6/P-3 NFOs.
For the longest time, the S-3 had a crew of two pilots up front, and two enlisted AWs in the back. Sometime in the late '80s, the single-anchor wearing aviator co-pilot in the right seat, was replaced by a double-anchor wearing NFO who was the COTAC. So the jet crew became one Naval Aviator, one NFO, and the back end guys. Being that NFOs were rated flight officers, were required crewmembers, and could fly as often as they liked since they had flight controls in front of them; many of them were able to log time this way, as well as apply it towards FAA certificates as flight time. I work with a former S-3 NFO who did just that, who ended up flying for Independance Air some time after he got out, and now works with me in Tucson.
(I don't get it.)