CVN CO

[GLW]

Only aviators can command a carrier.  Its congressionally mandated that way as well.  They get selected for XO and then sent to nuke school as commanders (although I did teach a CAPT in one class). 

So, as a SWO(N), the best you can do is major command....which is a cruiser.

BTW...selection rate for SWO(N) to LCDR has been 100% for at least the last five years.

So I have a trivia question on this topic,...
(I don't know nor have been able to google the answer),....

When (and why) did Congress mandate the "aviators only" rule?!?!

[Gamecock]

So I have a trivia question on this topic,...
(I don't know nor have been able to google the answer),....

When (and why) did Congress mandate the "aviators only" rule?!?!

I'll take this as a look-up and get back to you ASAP.

[Gamecock]

This is the best I got so far...

From Joint Forces Quarterly (http://www.dtic.mil/doctrine/jel/jfq_pubs/2017pgs.pdf), in an article written by Jan M. Van Tol

Risk was further reduced by establishing an institutional home for champions and a venue for experimenting with new capabilities and concepts of operation. This led to a viable career path that kept officers employed when their few years of flying ended. (There were inevitably too many pilots for the available senior billets. There was concern over the future of aviators who were not selected to be commanders or executive officers.) The establishment of the Bureau of Aeronautics in 1921 and the legislation passed in 1925 requiring commanding officers of aircraft carriers, seaplane tenders, and naval air stations to be aviators created career paths.

[Gamecock]

Current guidance that mandates that Aviators Command CV(N)s is Title 10:

§ 5942. Aviation commands: eligibility

(a) To be eligible to command an aircraft carrier or an aircraft tender, an officer must be an officer in the line of the Navy who is designated as a naval aviator or naval flight officer and who is otherwise qualified.

[JustinHEMI05]

Still doesn't answer why. Curious minds want to know. Thanks for the info and thanks for the cool trivia question!

Justin

[HydroDave63]

Current guidance that mandates that Aviators Command CV(N)s is Title 10:

§ 5942. Aviation commands: eligibility

(a) To be eligible to command an aircraft carrier or an aircraft tender, an officer must be an officer in the line of the Navy who is designated as a naval aviator or naval flight officer and who is otherwise qualified.

Or the ability to miss sandbars and undersea mountains whilst underway

[Cycoticpenguin]

I actually had a conversation with a PXO in prototype about this  exact subject. While I cant provide a specific reference, his description of it was that the CO needs to be well rounded on all aspects of the ship which is also why they go through the nuke pipeline. a Nuke officer would not be a good candidate to run an aircraft carrier because how much does a nuke know about aircraft?

That same PXO is now my XO 

[HydroDave63]

a Nuke officer would not be a good candidate to run an aircraft carrier because how much does a nuke know about aircraft?

You mean like the airdale that ran the Enterprise aground in harbor trying to make a dinner date, or the other airdale that wanted more launch-n-recovers and hit Bishop Rock?

[JustinHEMI05]

How much does an airdale know about nuclear power?  What he gets from his one year in the pipeline.

I still contend that a good SWO(N) could run a CVN better then any airdale ever could.

Although I can't speak from experience, I have to say +1 based on my nuke/coner experience. If it is similar, than a nuke officer could easily go through some sort of "training" like PXOs do. I had a class of PXOs and to even classify what they do as training/qualification is laughable, at best. Its probably has more to do with something like "good ole boys" club type of stuff.

Justin

[Cycoticpenguin]

How much does an airdale know about nuclear power?  What he gets from his one year in the pipeline.

I still contend that a good SWO(N) could run a CVN better then any airdale ever could.

with all due respect, its the same thing we all learn... 

[JustinHEMI05]

with all due respect, its the same thing we all learn... 

Is this speaking from your experience training PXOs? No? Then you aren't qualified to comment on the training PXOs receive. I have trained PXOs and it is not the same thing we all learn. It is a familiarization course, at best.

Justin

[Cycoticpenguin]

Is this speaking from your experience training PXOs? No? Then you aren't qualified to comment on the training PXOs receive. I have trained PXOs and it is not the same thing we all learn. It is a familiarization course, at best.

Justin

Fair enough, just going by what the guy said. To be fair... PXO's had to qualify eoow at prototype...

[JustinHEMI05]

Fair enough, just going by what the guy said. To be fair... PXO's had to qualify eoow at prototype...

I would use the term "qualify" loosely.

Justin

[mlslstephens]

I would use the term "qualify" loosely.

Justin

This is something to which I know much about.  Justin is right about using the term "qualify" loosely.  The first thing we do to the PXO when he/she arrives is assign them a "running mate" if you will; someone to guide them through the process.  Who, you may ask, do we assign???  The best we have at training people.  The PXOs are spoon fed through the process and yes, they do learn the basics of nuclear power.  The FWB and oral boards are where I saw the greatest differences.  I knew at the beginning of the day when I saw a 1CF/1CF over 1CF/1CF and one of the 1CF was a PXO that my team had at least a 25% pass rate for that day. 

Sorry about the abbreviations...1CF is spoken Final Watch Board.

[PapaBear765]

a Nuke officer would not be a good candidate to run an aircraft carrier because how much does a nuke know about aircraft?

Turns out it doesn't matter if the CO is an ex-nuke or ex-pilot...the quality of his leadership is independent of that data point.  See: CO and XO of a CVN recently fired for allowing hazmat to be improperly stowed and causing a fire.

It's like arguing over whether prior enlisted make better officers or not, or whether women make better operators...waste of time.  Unless it's just a shoot the poo.

[cincinnatinuke]

I remember standing watch at prototype as a qualified ELT and the PXO on watch had a drill run on his final wach of which it lasted about 2 minutes..........at which point he came over the 1MC and secured the drill.  I always just envisioned him deciding to secure the drill when HE thought he had seen enough.

BTW All the PXO's I encountered were really laid back and cool.  They also had a tremendous amount of chest candy!

[withroaj]

This topic begs the question:  do Nuke SWO's end up bitter by the time they become RO's?

[JustinHEMI05]

This topic begs the question:  do Nuke SWO's end up bitter by the time they become RO's?

I sure as heck would.

Justin

[withroaj]

I'll let you answer this question yourself......

Think how you would feel if you were the CO of a 300 man DDG one day............

and the next day you were a Department Head working for an XO and a CO who don't have half the sea time you do.

At least it's a Reactor Department, right?  I can't imagine being lucky enough to feel bitter about a position like that.  It should make us all realize what a privelege it is to do what we do.  I'm actually serious about that.  Who else would take for granted the opportunity to lead 300 (or so) of the Navy's finest, managing the care and feeding of a couple of great big grizzlie bears.

I admit that I tend to romanticize the Navy experience from time to time.  I really do have a realistic outlook on it, but I like to cling to the idea that we have just about the coolest job a person can get.

1).  We operate reactors.  There aren't many man-made things on the planet that measure up to the coolness of a nuclear reactor.

2).  Naval reactors push Navy ships.  While the reality of being on a Navy ship sucks from time to time (to time to time and so on...), I don't imagine anyone who has served in the Navy at 80 years old looking back at their service without at least a small sense of awe.

[Preciousblue1965]

I consider it a lost opportunity that I never saw a PXO come through during my time on crew in 3 years at NPTU CHSN.  I always wanted to stand watch with a PXO for one simple reason:

To give him/her the warning to NEVER make the RX dept mad.  Reason is that his stateroom has a nice little vent pipe in it that is for one of the aft pot water tanks and sometimes they "accidently" can get overfilled, thus flooding out his stateroom. 

Apparently it happened to a previous XO from my first ship before I was there because they had yellow tags on the tank fill valves that warned of the possibility of flooding out the XO stateroom if you overfilled the tanks. 

[S3GLMS]

When I was staff at prototype at New York in the early 90's I had the pleasure of meeting three Prospectove XO's and standing watch with them.  They were all very bright and very laid back, they had all commanded aviation squadrons prior to the nuke training.  They actually came through all of the training exercises pretty well and I had a lot of respect for them.  One thing that scared me was the fact that once they went through engineering drills as a watchstander they all agreed that this was great fun and they wanted to do them a lot on their ship because everyone seemed to be so enthusiastic.  Apparently we may have created some monstor's from a casualty drill practice standpoint but they sure did mean well because they saw value in us and our training. 

I saw all three of them go on to command the carriers, GW, Truman and Roosevelt following XO tours on other carriers.  One even commanded the Mount Whitney for a year.   The quality of the training program at that time was really high and although they had a senior rank, there were no corners cut, even including cleaning the LO purifier.  Even though we gave them the option of observing some one else do the practical factor.

I always thought that the selection process for those aviators must have been tough to get to that point, because they were all very talented and very intelligent.  ii hope they are still applying all of the same criteria now because as I look back on it what was being done as far as selection and training really served the navy well during the 90's.

[JustinHEMI05]

I absolutely loved the two PXOs I had the opportunity of marching through prototype. It was hard work, but they made it worth it with their personalities. That went a long way in me not being so bitter about coming in at wierd hours and on off days. The dynamic between them was fun too, one was "the smart one" the other "was not." But they were both guys I could easily share a scotch and cigar with while playing cards (and perhaps I did ). I wish I could say their names out loud here because I am sure someone is serving with them and I would like to know how they are doing.

Justin

[mattrev]

Had the pleasure  of pushing a couple PXO's through D1G in the early 80's. One I'll never forget, went on to be the XO of the Enterprise. Walked in the RL Div shop and "ordered" us to give him a checkout. So we did. 4 hours later and with 4 pages of lookups he left. 

Never saw him again. The rest were really cool though.

We really wish we'd known ahead of time what he was like so we could've setup the waterdown system from the M-Div shop.  

Probably just as well though. Hosing down an officer would've most likely put an end to that little joke.

[proud dad]

Little bit off topic
The recently retired CO of the Stennis started his career as a nuke MM.
Alan

[PapaBear765]

Never had direct interaction with a PXO, but I've heard things about them from both ends of the spectrum.  One was surprisingly all about getting a "hard checkout" and wanted lookups.  The other refused to write his name on the pages of his qual card or do any writing required for a training event.  All of their lecture notes and sketchbooks are pre-filled in for them, soon they'll have someone else getting the checkouts for them too.

Is there a good reason why PXOs should go through the "qual process" that they do?  Seems like a waste of time.