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Naval aviator (United States)

A naval aviator is a commissioned officer or warrant officer qualified as a crewed aircraft pilot in the United States Navy or United States Marine Corps. United States Coast Guard crewed aircraft pilots are officially designated as "Coast Guard aviators", although they complete the same undergraduate flight training as Navy and Marine Corps crewed aircraft pilots, and are awarded the same aviation breast insignia.

Ground school (aircraft systems, local course rules, emergency procedures)

Contact (takeoff and landing, limited maneuvers, spins, emergency landing pattern (ELP), emergency procedures)

Basic instruments (common instrument scans, generic instrument flight procedures)

Precision (aileron roll, loop, Cuban eight, barrel roll, wingover, split S, Immelmann, cloverleaf)

aerobatics

Formation (basic section flight, cruise formation flight)

Radio instrument navigation (VOR, holding, ILS/LOC, PAR/ASR, RNAV)

Night familiarization

Visual navigation

Community selection[edit]

Upon completion of flight training, a final selection process takes place in which the student naval aviators are assigned a particular fleet aircraft community (e.g., F/A-18C/D/E/F, EA-18G, AV-8B or F-35B/C for strike; E-2/C-2 for carrier AEW and COD; SH-60, HH-60, MH-60, MH-65, AH-1Z, UH-1Y, CH-53E/K, MH-53, CMV-22, or MV-22 for rotary-wing, P-8, E-6, EP-3, KC-130, HC-130, HC-144 for maritime, etc.). This selection is also based upon the needs of the service and performance. Newly designated naval aviators (no longer referred to as "students") are then assigned to a USN or USMC fleet replacement squadron or other similar training organization under the cognizance of the US Coast Guard or the US Air Force, for training on their specific aircraft type. Currently, approximately up to 1,000 pilots are designated each year, and between 1910 and 1995 more than 153,000 naval aviators earned their "wings of gold".[10]

Service commitment[edit]

Student naval aviators incur a ten year active duty service commitment that begins after they receive designation as a naval aviator.[12]

Aircraft carrier commanding officer[edit]

A provision in Title 10 of the United States Code requires that US aircraft carrier commanding officers and executive officers be Navy unrestricted line officers designated as either naval aviators or naval flight officers.[13]

Aviation Cadet Training Program (USN)

United States Marine Corps Aviation

Naval flight officer

Modern United States Navy carrier air operations

List of United States naval aircraft

List of United States Navy aircraft squadrons

List of United States Marine Corps aircraft squadrons

NATOPS

Badges of the United States Navy

Badges of the United States Marine Corps

Badges of the United States Coast Guard

Military badges of the United States