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.

 

[GR66]

There's no reason you can't have both an integrated training pipeline and fleets commanded by the separate Elements. Unification as it should have been rather than what it became.

 

[Oldgateboatdriver]

The UK considers its two carriers to be "national assets" and both the RN Naval Air Arm and the RAF fly F35-B's and EH-101's from them.

Seems to me that as a unified service in Canada, we should be able to figure out how to do this.

Personally, I could see a system where F35-B pilots would start under the RCAF's umbrella and do a tour as junior pilots in an embarked squadron, then a second tour as a senior pilot, at which point in their career, they would have to elect to go on with the RCAF as "RCAF" based pilots making their way up into a squadron-wing-group, air general etc. progression, or elect to switch to the RCN leading to a "conversion" course to get their watchkeeping certificate, followed by a naval air squadron command onboard the carrier, then a tour as commander air group of the carrier, followed by command of the carrier, and on to flag officer if warranted.

Such a system would re-introduce knowledge of air operations into the fleet while relying on the strength of the RCAF in developing fighter pilots, while providing admirals from "both" sides of the equation in time (surface warfare or air) and providing the RCAF with a knowledge base in naval air strike.

In time, I can also see that the election to switch element could be done earlier, say between first and second tour at sea, for pilots identified as "up-and-coming" that would already have made up their mind.

P.S. I can see such system also being applied to the rotary wing side of the RCAF/RCN combo.

 

[GR66]

P.S. I can see such system also being applied to the rotary wing side of the RCAF/RCN combo.

Even easier if you were to replace both the Cyclones and Griffons with AW101's so you'd have a common platform across the MH, TacHel and SAR fleets (or as @KevinB would suggest replace everything with Blackhawks).