Our North - SSE Policy Update Megathread

[dimsum]

How does it work in other navies? RAN, RNZN, RN, USN, and NATO navies. They all have rotary air in their perview and in many cases all Maritime Patrol Aircraft as well.

There are positions that are equivalent in the ladder that are identified which any stripe of naval officer can move through. In the US their equivalent of Combat Systems Engineers can become CO's as well as pilots. If you pass your command exams and do the command course does it matter? Its just that command exams and command course isn't offered to Engineers or Pilots right now, you could easily offer it to them. Would they have a hard time passing? Hell yah, there is a lot of navigation involved.

Perhaps only certain ships can have pilots as CO's, ones where air operations are more important and control of navigation responsibilities are delegated to a wet officer on a more permanent basis instead of an adhoc one like with current RCN ships.

Getting totally off topic here, but:

AFAIK other navies (other than the USN) don’t have their naval aircrew also have the same command track as ship COs - maybe the RN is different. USN MPRA aircrew don’t command ships - the land-based USN folks and the sea-based USN folks might as well be two separate services. They will do a tour on a carrier as something but sqn command, Wing command, etc is different.

Frankly I don’t see the need for MH aircrew to become ship COs, like I don’t see the need for Tac Hel aircrew to become Bn COs. We already have the sqns separate from the ships / army formations. I just see a lot of teething and culture pain and a bunch of people (mostly in the air side) wondering why things are changing. I can sort of see it from “tradition” but it imposes some second-order issues.

Edit to add:

Example: Say you are someone wanting to fly something in the CAF. You go to CFRC - would you know what you want to fly already? If you’re in the US, Australia, etc then you’d have to know already, because (say in Australia’s case) if you want to fly helicopters, you have to be in the Army or the Navy, which have different training pipelines. In the RCAF, all pilots go through the same pipeline until Phase 3 (for good or bad) but if one fails out of Fighters, for example, they can just switch to Helicopters or whatever. In the other countries listed, they would change services. It’s not the end of the world but having all flying things under the RCAF means that aircrew all join as one service.

This then brings about another thought experiment - does the CAF then enroll all pilots, ACSOs, AES Ops, Flight Engineers, etc as RCAF and then if they go to the Tac Hel, Mar Hel, or potentially LRP, they switch uniforms to RCN or CA? How about the techs who don’t necessarily know what fleet they join until after CFSATE?

 

[dapaterson]

experiment - does the CAF then enroll all pilots, ACSOs, AES Ops, Flight Engineers, etc as RCAF and then if they go to the Tac Hel, Mar Hel, or potentially LRP, they switch uniforms to RCN or CA? How about the techs who don’t necessarily know what fleet they join until after CFSATE?

Clearly we need to triple the number of schools and support staff to enable that split.

 

[dimsum]

Clearly we need to triple the number of schools and support staff to enable that split.

looks at US, Australia, UK, etc

 

[KevinB]

looks at US, Australia, UK, etc

Hey that number isn't getting to 2% by the status quo...

 

[dimsum]

Hey that number isn't getting to 2% by the status quo...

Quadruple our pensions and pay. Done.

 

[SeaKingTacco]

Getting totally off topic here, but:

AFAIK other navies (other than the USN) don’t have their naval aircrew also have the same command track as ship COs - maybe the RN is different. USN MPRA aircrew don’t command ships - the land-based USN folks and the sea-based USN folks might as well be two separate services. They will do a tour on a carrier as something but sqn command, Wing command, etc is different.

Frankly I don’t see the need for MH aircrew to become ship COs, like I don’t see the need for Tac Hel aircrew to become Bn COs. We already have the sqns separate from the ships / army formations. I just see a lot of teething and culture pain and a bunch of people (mostly in the air side) wondering why things are changing. I can sort of see it from “tradition” but it imposes some second-order issues.

Edit to add:

Example: Say you are someone wanting to fly something in the CAF. You go to CFRC - would you know what you want to fly already? If you’re in the US, Australia, etc then you’d have to know already, because (say in Australia’s case) if you want to fly helicopters, you have to be in the Army or the Navy, which have different training pipelines. In the RCAF, all pilots go through the same pipeline until Phase 3 (for good or bad) but if one fails out of Fighters, for example, they can just switch to Helicopters or whatever. In the other countries listed, they would change services. It’s not the end of the world but having all flying things under the RCAF means that aircrew all join as one service.

This then brings about another thought experiment - does the CAF then enroll all pilots, ACSOs, AES Ops, Flight Engineers, etc as RCAF and then if they go to the Tac Hel, Mar Hel, or potentially LRP, they switch uniforms to RCN or CA? How about the techs who don’t necessarily know what fleet they join until after CFSATE?

The problem is not teaching people to fly.

The issues we are starting to see is a lack of tactical employment knowledge; a lack of tactics development and a lack of staffing for new requirements, because, the RCN doesn’t understand stand Maritime Air Doctrine anymore and the RCAF does not care.

 

[GK .Dundas]

The problem is not teaching people to fly.

The issues we are starting to see is a lack of tactical employment knowledge; a lack of tactics development and a lack of staffing for new requirements, because, the RCN doesn’t understand stand Maritime Air Doctrine anymore and the RCAF does not care.

There has always been a need for the closest integration of naval air and the fleet. The loss of the naval aviation was a disaster.... is a disaster.
The same can be said of the Army.