SpiraMirabilis
Possible Subversive
Does anyone have any information about this? Is it very competitive? Can you enter the program with a bachelors / as a O-1 ?
Army Warrant Officer Flight Program
- Thread starter SpiraMirabilis
- Start date
Its a pretty competitive program. Yes, you can enter the program with a bachelors (though one isn't required IIRC), and you're sent to WOC school as a Warrant Officer Candidate (you earn the grade of WO-1, vs O-1; since you're not a commissioned officer). You also take flight school concurrently, I believe.
The Army guys on the board here would have far more in-depth info than me though.
SpiraMirabilis
Possible Subversive
Do you know if you can enter the flight program as a comissioned officer?
No. Again, a WO is not a commissioned officer. An O is a commissioned officer. WOs are Warrant Officers....they specialize in an particular area (such as aviation, supply, maintenance, etc) but do not hold command billets as commissioned officers do. Their paygrades are WO-1 to CW-5. In the Army, their job as aviation guys is to fly, so they generally fly more than the commissioned officers do, since the commissioned officers have ancillary duties such as Platoon Leader and Company Commander. The WOC program you're referring to is for Warrant Officer pilots.
Sure - as a newly commissioned 2LT who branched aviation or medical service corps.
If you already have a bachelors you can do a few things:
- Apply for Warrant Officer Candidate School - the benefit here is if you are accepted and pass training you are guaranteed to be a pilot
- Apply for Officer Candidate School - The downside is, branching is competitive - no guarantee you'd be an aviator
- Attend Army ROTC while attending grad school. Again, branching is competitive.
SpiraMirabilis
Possible Subversive
Yeah, I understand the differences between a warrant officer and a comissioned officer. I was just wondering because I do have a bachelors whether or not I could go to OCS and afterwards still fly helicopters or if you had to enter as a warrant officer candidate. 
Yeah, I understand the differences between a warrant officer and a comissioned officer. I was just wondering because I do have a bachelors whether or not I could go to OCS and afterwards still fly helicopters or if you had to enter as a warrant officer candidate.
Oh my bad, I missed that you were asking about both, I was reading it as just asking about the WOC program. What Ian said.
Actually, those were our primary duties. The ancillary duty was as a pilot.
LOL.....got me there!
Low_Level_Hell
Well-Known Member
Having a degree will help out greatly in getting accepted into WOFT. Several Warrant Officers have gone onto OCS to later become Aviation Branched Officers.
Good Luck!
Good Luck!
SpiraMirabilis
Possible Subversive
Thanks for the info everyone!
:yeahthat:
If all you wish to do is fly, WOFT is the best option. Later, after the experience, should you decide to go commissioned, that option is available to you. My personal opinion? Warrants are the coolest.
Blackhawk
Well-Known Member
Yeah, I understand the differences between a warrant officer and a commissioned officer. I was just wondering because I do have a bachelors whether or not I could go to OCS and afterward still fly helicopters or if you had to enter as a warrant officer candidate.
If you are interested in being a commissioned officer in aviation branch, I would recommend going WOFT first. Then apply to OCS. I would not say you are guaranteed aviation that way if you go to OCS, but if they do not give you aviation you can always decline the commission and go back to being a WO.
BTW, WO1s are not commissioned; CW2-CW5 are.
Timmypig
Well-Known Member
Really 'bone' question, but the Australian Army doesn't have a program like that.....so I'm completely ignorant of your program.
What is the reason for having a rank structure for these Warrant Officers? I understand the program isn't really designed to turn out commanders, so what is the difference between the responsibilities of the different aviation Warrant Officer ranks?
For what it's worth, we have "SSOs" - Specialist Service Officers. These folks go to Royal Military College, like the rest of us, but do a short commissioning course (the 'Vicars & Tarts' course) and are put on an 8 year contract to just fly fly fly. As far as I can tell, this is pretty similar to the program we're discussing, but the SSOs get commissions, the US Army Warrant Officer aviators don't.
What is the reason for having a rank structure for these Warrant Officers? I understand the program isn't really designed to turn out commanders, so what is the difference between the responsibilities of the different aviation Warrant Officer ranks?
For what it's worth, we have "SSOs" - Specialist Service Officers. These folks go to Royal Military College, like the rest of us, but do a short commissioning course (the 'Vicars & Tarts' course) and are put on an 8 year contract to just fly fly fly. As far as I can tell, this is pretty similar to the program we're discussing, but the SSOs get commissions, the US Army Warrant Officer aviators don't.
Firebird2XC
Well-Known Member
If you go in, and just want to fly, the Warrant Officer program is what you want.
If you go commissioned officer, you won't fly nearly as much. Oddly enough, aviation branch officers fly less over the duration of their careers than medical service corps officers.
Granted, that was back when aviation companies had a Captain for a C.O. Medevac companies use Majors for C.O.'s After those points, you'll see a lot of staff time and far less stick time. Met an MSC Captain once that said she transferred there from Aviation Corps to fly longer in her career.
Go figure.
Blackhawk
Well-Known Member
Between WO1 and CW2, normally not much. Kind of like the difference between a 2nd and 1st lieutenant. Usually you will find that your company standards officers are CW3s/CW4s. BN standards officer is usually a CW4. You normally will not see CW5s below regimental level.
The warrant officers are in some ways like flight officers. While they spend most of their time flying, they also take care of administrative/advisory functions for the leaders and commanders. For example, the platoon instructor pilot will normally take the new lieutenant under his/her wing and mentor the new leader. The company standards officer normally takes care of company level instructor functions, paper work, and advises the company commander. Same with the battalion and regimental instructor pilots, safety officers and TACOPs officers. The later normally assist the operations officer (a major), in the planning and execution of the unit's mission. The major is normally big picture, while the TACOPs officer will be details.
Between Viet Nam and the beginning of this war the ability of the commissioned officer to truly lead a unit diminished. Lieutenants were told they were not there to fly; same with captains. It was not unusual to see a BN commander who had never been a pilot in command- same with an operations officer. What you ended up with were commissioned officers who could not really lead their units. Could you imagine an armor officer being told "You don't need to know anything about tanks." Or an infantry lieutenant being told, "Don't worry about knowing about the weapons in your platoon. That's what enlisted are for."??? That is what happened to aviation in the US Army. We were sent to pointless schools where we learned about Civil War battles, but nothing at all about aviation battles. I was actually told in one of these courses by the Assistant Commander to Ft. Rucker (essentially, the assistant commander to US Army Aviation), that I did not need to know anything about tactics in aviation.
This began to change with General Cody. He is a controversial person in US Army Aviation, but one of the good things he began to change was his insistence that commissioned officers needed to know about aviation. Lieutenants and captains needed to be PICs. Same with BCs.
I think things really began to change as units deployed and it became obvious that captains, majors and lieutenant colonels who could not fly were liabilities rather than assets. When you have airframes flying 135 hours/month and you have only two pilots assigned per airframe, you don't want to hear that major so-and-so does not know how to fly.
BTW, above the rank of WO1 warrant officers are commissioned in the US Army. This became an important point when the Army began using warrant officers as ship commanders (yes, the US Army has a "navy"), and commanders of some aviation detachments. Without being commissioned they did not have UCMJ (Uniform Code of Military Justice), authority. In other words, they could not dispense military justice to lower ranks.
Finally, WOs are normally on a first name basis. A WO1 will normally call a CW5 by his/her first name. There is no rank among thieves, lieutenants and warrant officers. Or at least there should not be. (I actually got chewed out by a 1st lieutenant in flight school for not saluting him).
anic:
SpiraMirabilis
Possible Subversive
Will a couple thousand hours fixed wing time help or hurt my chances?
Firebird2XC
Well-Known Member
Will a couple thousand hours fixed wing time help or hurt my chances?
It'll help.
Some of the knuckleheads that get into that program from other parts of the Army are astoundingly bad pilots ever AFTER flight school.
Your time makes you a very strong applicant, assuming the rest of your application is in order.
Turbo Mcfloat
Well-Known Member
Is it possible to join the Army or Guard and go straight to flight school as a WO?