Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!jarthur!usc!apple!sun-barr!rutgers!att!cbnews!military
From: ron@hpfcso.hp.com (Ron Miller)
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: Re: Re: Naval Aviators and Surface Warfare Officers
Message-ID: <1990Jul18.040804.14099@cbnews.att.com>
Date: 18 Jul 90 04:08:04 GMT
References: <1990Jul17.032016.22957@cbnews.att.com>
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From: ron@hpfcso.hp.com (Ron Miller)

Re: Aviators, skimmers and others....

That the CO of a carrier has to be an aviator probably stems from
the pre-WWII problems where carriers were commanded by non-aviators
and caused problems. References to "battleship admirals" implies that
there was "turf" to be protected amongst the specialties and that
the current turf for aviators includes CO of the moving airfield. 

Add to that the requirement (from Congress probably suggested by
Rickover) that the nuclear carrier CO  be nuclear trained.... and you've
got one helluva training problem. (Aviator serving as CO of a nuclear
powerplant that happens to have a flat roof - sheesh!)  
Fortunately, most of the top candidates are really bright guys and can 
cope with the challenge but they will make mistakes (two of my father's 
friends were in Nuclear Power School as aviator C.O. candidates while I was 
there as a new Ensign)

I think there are arguments on both sides but to put a surface
qualified officer in charge of the birdfarm would require changing
the status quo and THAT would take some awfully powerful arguments.


Maybe the third alternative would be to give it to neither and put
a Nuclear Submariner in charge! Ask any Submariner and they'll tell you there's
nothing you can ask that they can't look up :-)))

Ron Miller  ex-Lt. USN
(formerly of USS CINCINNATTI SSN-693  Black & Blue Crew)