In addition to its Carrier Air Wings the Navy operates various land based wings. Navy operates Carrier Air Wings which are operational units made up of squadrons of different types of aircraft that deploy aboard aircraft carriers. Those wings and the rating they represented are probably the most interesting aircrew assignments of that era - especially the aircraft they may have flown, like the P-61 or the B-32.This is a list of United States Navy aircraft wings. Probably the most common of these were late-in-the-war aviation cadets who became pilots, bombardiers and navigators or had one or two different ratings and may have worn observer wings. I am aware of a few examples of aircraft mechanics who qualified as gunners, flew missions and either earned aircrew or gunner wings in the field.Īs for warrant officers, flight officers and pilot officers, yes they would wear the wings of their rating. The only other option here is that this pilot qualified as a gunner at some point and may have been presented the wings - but the likelihood of him actually wearing them is slim because the pilot wings would have trumped any other set of wings with the exception of something foreign. He actually flew aerial gunner missions earning one or more Air Medals and I think even outranked the pilot - so he could have actually been the aircraft commander at least once.Īlso, I'm of that era in the Air Force when there were still one or two enlisted gunners who ultimately became general officers and very proudly wore their gunner wings. An old pilot once told me that in his class they divided it up-1/2 got LT bars athe other half flight officer insignia.Ī pilot wing would, of course, wear his pilot wings, but it is possible that during the course of his training during either basic or primary flight school, he would have qualified for the aircrew or gunner wings.Įnlisted members did not exclusively wear aircrew wings.įor example, Major Clark Gable was a gunner first and an OCS graduate second. Some were made flight officers (equal to a warrent officer).
Not all pilots were comissioned as 2nd Lts after completing the various schools.
Cadets who washed out of flight school or chose to pursue other avenues and went to the navigation or bombarier schools would wear those wings.
Once they finished advanced flight school and qualified for their pilot wings, they would have worn those. While going through basic and primary flight schools, they would have recieved training in things like arial gunnery and could have then become qualified to wear the gunner or aircrew wing. I believe (but could be wrong) that aviation cadets were considered enlisted men. In general, the majority of aviation cadets would have gone through 3 levels of flight training, basic, primary and advanced flight schools. I think some of the confusion has to do with how the training process worked during WWII.
0 kommentar(er)
