Naval Flight Officers will soon instruct some Navy and Marine student fighter pilots. For the first time, as part of a "probationary program", the chief of naval air training expects to add several NFOs [of the RIO/WSO background] to the four jet training wings flying T-45 Goshawk's at NAS Kingsville, Tx and Meridian, MS.
"We're going to test it out for a year and see how it goes," said RAdm. Mark Guadagnini, the chief of naval air training. NFOs will only fly with students in the program's advanced phase, after the students have passed a "safe for solo" checkride, training officials said. For years, NFO instructors have provided key tactical training to young aviators at the fleet replacement squadron level [where the Naval aviators have already been winged]. Now, NFOs will teach undergraduate students tactical skills such as weapons training and air combat maneuvering, a duty previously reserved for IP Naval Aviators, not NFOs.
A key motivation for adding NFO instructors at the training wing level for pilots, was to beef up staffing and reduce bottlenecks in the student flight pipeline. A few years ago, the supply of IPs fell to 75% of the training wing's requirements, making it difficult to produce as many pilots as the USN/USMC needed, training officials said.
IP manning in the training wings is back to nearly 100%, and introducing NFOs as flying instructors may help keep it that way by avoiding a "single source solution" that permits only jet pilots to serve as IPs.
