nsplayr

Like others have said, you can get U-28 from either nav or ewo side and you sit the same seat/do the same job operationally. It's tight lipped/classified on what that is exactly but I'm hoping to find out soon enough since that's what I wanna drop. Your right...didn't mean to come off in a derogatory way to any other career field. I agree that there are way too many flyers who think they are shit hot when they really just piss everyone else off. I'm just happy to get in the fight one way or another and feel lucky that I'll get the chance to do that in the air vs. on the ground/sea. As other people pointed out, I forgot in include MC-130s on the list. From what they told our class, you can drop MCs as an EWO but not as a nav anymore. Apparently they don't want to take stud navs from the pipeline anymore on MCs after the crash a little while back. We're probably getting 1 MC-130 for the EWOs (our #2 guy wants MCs) and none for navs. We've heard from Buff instructors on both nav and EWO side that they're moving to a model where radar nav, the regular nav, and the ewo are all qualified to sit each seat. Not sure if it's happening right now but for guys who want to go Buff were told to expect it in the future.

I'll try to answer the best I can as a current nav school dude (i.e. based on briefings we've gotten, etc.) There are still plenty of platforms you can drop out of nav school as it currently stands. Everything will be getting a major overhaul when nav school moves to P-cola in the near future, and from what I've heard people graduating with CSO slots as 2009 college grads are getting orders to P-cola, not Randolph. The way it is right now, there are still two "tracks" you can pick from/compete for, advanced nav & ewo. All of us are called "CSOs" but that doesn't really mean much right now until the P-cola syllabus can get up and running. Everyone gets a little electronic warfare training, everyone knows how to operate the radar, but in practice you're still either a "nav" or an "ewo," with implications on what aircraft you can select and what jobs you will do in the real air force. Airframes you can get as a nav: slick C-130, AC-130, EC-130, HC-130, RC-135, B-52, AWACS, JSTARS, KC-135, U-28 Airframes you can get as a EWO: AC-130, EC-130, RC-135, B-52, U-28 Airframes you can only get out of P-cola as a WSO: B-1, F-15E Like I said above, once everything moves to P-cola it will change and students will be able to compete for any of these aircraft in theory (however they are starting to get rid of traditional navs on KC-135s and AWACS, but it's a slow process and they're still dropping currently) So you did leave off a few aircraft you can fly as a nav. But your point is taken that, yea, they are getting rid of traditional "tacan & radar" navs on some jets, but that's why a new syllabus is being developed and implemented at P-cola. Graduates from there will be the first real "CSOs" in my opinion because anyone training at Randolph is not getting fundamentally different training than anyone who came through here in the past 15 years (other than the navs experiencing a little electronic warfare intro in Ops phase). In terms of the difference between Navy vs. AF lifestyles as a CSO/NFO, I have no idea. The navy dudes in my class always said AF was gay and were always spouting off with things like "bulkhead" and "aye skipper" etc., so take from that what you will :) Finally, whoever made this thread originally should be shot. For real...Combat Support Officer?? As a (soon-to-be) rated officer I'd tell anyone who says I'm in a "support" role to eat it. CSO stands for Combat Systems Officer, since CSOs run "combat systems" such as tactical comms, weapons & navigational radars, jamming pods, ISR systems, etc. It's almost like calling a pilot a bus driver on accident...party foul

sounds great to me...more manned platforms = good, actual flying jobs near DC = even better

There's been talk down in the 563rd FTS (EW squadron at Randolph) about E Dubs from all types of airframes having a potential future in AFCYBER. No real information, but just a lot of talk that E Dubs/CSOs in general need to know their shit about electronic warfare b/c AFCYBER is gonna be a place with lots of money to spend and lots of billets to fill in the future. How that effects getting screwed out of being able to fly again, no idea...