[CWOJackson]

We're finally discovering what we already knew man years ago.

[trashcanbred]

I remember a time when there was talk of phasing out the warrant officers of the Army that flew helicopters. Guess that never happened and they are now adding it to the Navy.

[doorgunner69]

Could be interesting. Many, many moons ago I flew on an ancient C-47 piloted by the last of the WW2 enlisted rank pilots, an incredibly crusty old Master Gunnery sergeant. The guy looked like Methuselah to my teenage eyes.

Absolutely no reason to restrict aviators to being commissioned rank only.

[joesnuffy]

Lots of potentially gifted aviators from the ranks and its about time they went looking for them...

The Army has known about this for 40 yrs or better...

What a great opportunity for natural born aviators...

[PzLdr]

The U.S was the only major power in WW II that wanted pilots be commissioned officers. The Brits, the Germans and the Japanese all had NCOs flying.

This may be new to the Navy, but Army aviation had a sh*tload of WOs flying by '68 when I was in Armor School. Had been using them since 'Nam revved up and the 1st Air Cav was formed, if not earlier.

[68skylark]

I don't know why these sailors are jumping over the W01 rank and going straight to W02. Isn't that kind of an insult to warrant officers in other services (especially Army pilots) who get to Chief Warrant Officer the hard way?