Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!att!cbnews!military From: shafer@drynix (Mary Shafer) Newsgroups: sci.military Subject: Re: Navigator/Bombadier/Weapons Officer Question Message-ID: <10713@cbnews.ATT.COM> Date: 28 Oct 89 04:21:52 GMT Sender: military@cbnews.ATT.COM Lines: 28 Approved: military@att.att.com From: Mary Shafer Stephen D. Grant writes: >After watching several shows involving fighters and bombers, i was pondering >the following question. Do navigators-bombadiers or Weapons officers have to >have pilot training also? Such as the 2 crew of an F-111? Or are their jobs >distinctly unique and separate? Which military planes require that there be >an officer with a primary level of technical training, and a secondary skill of >piloting? No, Air Force non-pilots are just that, non-pilots. They may well know how to fly, having learned privately or from tolerant pilots or having been in flight training until forced to quit; however the Air Force doesn't teach them to fly. Navy non-pilots don't even have flight controls available. It would do them no good to know how to fly. I suspect that anything that would keep a pilot from being a pilot would take him/her off flying status, so that pilots wouldn't become WSOs or navs. -- Mary Shafer shafer@elxsi.dfrf.nasa.gov ames!elxsi.dfrf.nasa.gov!shafer NASA Ames-Dryden Flight Research Facility, Edwards, CA Of course I don't speak for NASA