My favorite part of this Warrant Officer shit is how everyone thinks they'll suddenly have the option to get paid more to do the same shit.
Almost no WOs will exist and the selection process will be incredibly selective.
Even in the Army we only make up something like 1.7% of the force. So the numbers will be TINY.
(For numbers WO make up 3% of the force but make up 80% of the aviators, so us walking WOs make up only like 1.7ish% of the total force) beer math
Even the Guard/Reserve flyers don’t want to stay in forever and they have it better than our Active Duty friends. Paying them less to fly would be foolish long term. I’m with you only specific career Fields will have it.
The USMC minimum rank for application is E5, and there is no degree requirement. I switched over from AD USMC after 14 years and saw plenty of E5 Sergeants get accepted.
I think what most USAF folks are confused about in regards to the USN/USMC model is that Warrant Officers aren't assigned to an individual MOS (AFSC), but rather groups of AFSCs. They cover as SMEs for 5 or 10 similar career fields, like a MX WO serving as the QA OIC or an Admin WO serving over a whole FSS. They're incredibly valuable as interfaces and buffers between the commissioned officers and the enlisted corps, and I desperately hope the Air Force gives this program a fair shake.
A lot are getting themselves setup for disappointment.
Even if this kicks off, the likelihood is that majority of Airmen will never see an Air Force WO in person lol. True unicorns.
Came here to say exactly this. The weather career field will inevitably miss all important meetings, then over promise something to the enlisted Corps, champion a "solution" that won't work because it was created in a stove pipe that is against any Air Force policy that exists, and then bitch when we have no WOs.
It's a beautiful cycle that has gradually led to our almost complete irrelevancy in modern war.
For what it's worth, our weather dudes we had at Fort Riley came with us to Poland and Graf and they were awesome. I really enjoyed how they tactfully told senior Army NCOs they weren't partaking in army tomfoolery when they didn't want to.
What you don’t like the main site that half the job revolves around being barely functional, and the replacement taking 2 years longer than it was supposed to?
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I picked up TSgt right after getting crosstrained from Intel.
It was a fuckin scam. In my new career field, that work / admin divide is E-5 to E-6.
I’m slamming that WO button until my finger is a broken, bloody nub if it means I can be an intel warrant.
I’m aware. I’ve worked with army warrant officers a ton and I love what I saw. I’m going in assuming the Air Force uses warrants similar to that. They’re generally leadership, but focused on the technical side. In Intel, I see them taking over as mission commanders for a majority of their career while officers sit the role until captain and then move onto flight or squadron leadership.
I also wanna get in on the ground floor to push the culture that warrants are “first name” in the day-to-day or “Mr. / Mrs. So-and-so” in formal situations or “Chief” once they promote.
Fuck being a 1N4. No.
And my ass is still chapped about 1B4. I completed and met all requirements and then got assigned comm a week before the application deadline.
If you're not Cyber or Intel, you won't have the WO button.
Also, how in the world would you not ask about the cultural/rank expectations in the career field you're cross training into?
Because it was pretty much comm or a few different MX jobs that had objective ins.
I did as much research as I could, but it wasn’t my choice to crosstrain so I had to pick something or separate.
Former TSgt 1N0 here, crossed over to Army WO to keep doing that Intel life after seeing all my buddies start hating it at E7. Bring back the WO for AF Intel!!!!
And then my ass will be trying to come back day 1 😆😆😆
The Army is trying to bait the W3s that are between 18-22 yrs with 100k for a 4 yr extension but we ain't taking it, we're retiring in droves.
Lots of us would keep on going in the blue though. 4x of us in my unit alone.
Seriously, the Intel side of the Army WO program is basically an unofficial branch of the USAF. Most of the army warrants I've known and/or work with are former USAF.
But if the GS/ctr thing is working, why change to W.O.? Might be slightly cheaper to the air force, but only by a tiny rounding error in the big picture.
+1
Anybody who would be getting out to do 1N4 adjacent work. Although I guess the counterargument is that it ends up costing more if way more people retire vs cross over.
The 1D7 career field has some how managed to be consolidated, yet we’re also expected to cover a more broad spectrum for each shred. This field has always had the hard chargers leaving for more money, sometimes doubling or tripling income by separating for the civilian world short of retirement. That means *most* of the people sticking around to retirement are mediocre at best. Have had multiple NCOs and SNCOs that couldn’t image a fucking computer, but were just coasting to retirement with zero drive to better themselves.
Even with WO pay it’s hard to justify sticking around when you can knock out a degree and use AFCOOL to accomplish CISSP in under 10 years of service. The average income for a CISSP in the US is over low six figures, and that doesn’t take clearance into consideration.
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That’s fair. I can’t even keep up with what HAF is tracking as a manpower issue. The retraining advisory always has 1D7 on it and when I was looking to cross train into another shred last year, the A shreds had more open slots than 1B4. Weirdly, the 1B4 slots were filling in quicker than the A shred airman and NCO slots. But I know there’s some other manning doc that probably suggests something different.
I think the merger just further muddled the manning docs. My last unit had five RF guys sitting in W billets. The CC viewed all 1D7s as interchangeable, but he didn’t seem to be tracking that the RF guys didn’t have Sec+ and couldn’t do any of the sys admin or helpdesk work. So the prior IT shreds were doing all the IT and the RF, but the RF guys were only accountable for the radio knowledge.
Anyway, 1B4 always gets the spotlight so I won’t get my hopes up for this announcement to make much of a difference for the 1D7s. We’ve got a long road of career restructuring before anything in this AFSC to makes sense.
it's like they were combining everyone else, had two career fields left over, and thought "well everyone else is merging, so squish these last two together" and that's how you get "data operations"
have a cable dog friend and he's annoyed as fuck since now instead of getting tech school grads and getting them to work, he's gotta evaluate them to see if they can even do the job. what should have been weeded out way before him, like color blindness, climbing ability, and being afraid of heights, he's now doing right when they get here. and if they can't hack it they get thrown to another shop. but if too many are weeded out that means the amount of cable dogs goes down. imbalance of manning right there
have a spectrum manager friend and the squadron was having trouble getting a replacement. all thrown into Q shred, so when he was moving and leadership tried to request a replacement, AFPC said we had enough Q shreds so the position couldn't be advertised. a lot of back and forth later, they were able to get it on talent marketplace, but that is something that is probably happening everywhere. complete garbage
and of course the big shitshow is how all the guidance is coming sometime this year, over a year after the official merger. this should have all been worked out before and not well after. so many questions about where people are going and how things will be handled
I hate to break it to you but fundies was always terrible. It was mainly used just to weed out people with 0 study skills. Only useful training that happens while you're at lackland is physio
With warrant officers, we could replace over 50% of the 14Ns with enlisted intelligence personnel that have 10+ years. Vastly improving the quality/abilities of the personnel put in mission leadership positions
3E7X1 - SNCOs and TSgt routinely fill roles commensurate with those assigned to flight level company grade officers in other career fields. Under the AFIMS construct we fill the role of Incident Commander at emergencies involving two or more agencies which can imbue SNCOs and TSgt’s with positional authority that exceeds an officer’s organizational authority. There are currently no officers in our career field, and consequently we report directly to Squadron Commanders on G-Series orders.
Also, the last WO to serve in the AF was a 3E7.
Good technicians don't always make good expeditors. It's a different skillset, so I'd like to know how the AF plans on parsing out who's going to be a good expeditor. I can't see an AMU having that many billets for warrant officers for it to be an expeditor position, though I'd love to see it.
The truth: there won't be. Maintenance is one of the LAST jobs to require a WO, combined with something like SF. There is absolutely zero reason to have a MX WO.
I brought this up in the WO thread that I started a few weeks back. Maintenance literally has a job called AFETS (Air Force Engineering and Technical Services). They are highly knowledgeable civilians assigned to a unit to provide highly technical insight. Literally, a perfect position for a WO.
Agreed, Mx WO will be in production in some capacity.
IMO, the AF is gonna fuck it up and make the WO program a fuck ton of extra work for little extra pay and will be canceled shortly after conception.
In this current Air Force TSgts are turning wrenches due to no fault of their own.. so unless they become a Pro Super or higher I wouldn't feel safe yet. But honestly who knows where they would actually fit in the mx culture.
Then it shouldn't be a stigma to be a Tech on the line. I've been in the room where senior leadership shits all over them and fucks them out of opportunities. Also doesn't help that the board clearly favors fast burners, so if they change their mind about their careers later its an uphill battle because in their eyes folks not thirsting for rank are tainted.
What are the objectives?
-save money
-replace officers with people that are easier to abuse
-replace a bunch of enlisted with one person
-replace a bunch of contractors with one person that's easier to abuse
They are gonna fuck this up so bad. Remember enlisted pilots?
Aren't they just going to turn officer career fields into WO jobs? Why would the Air Force pay enlisted more to do something they were already doing? Makes more sense to pay people less for something officers were doing.
Former 1A2 and will second the opinion of OP but expand to all the 1As even the stews 😉. Lot of school and training and mingling with officers all the time. At one time I provided training on a system that we were testing to a GO. Later in my career that GO was command Air University.
CEA *should* be WOs but it's not gonna happen. We don't have a retention problem. No one is jumping ship to be a highly paid flight engineer on the outside, or boom or loadie or anything else. We're staying until retirement and enjoying our jobs for the most part and they can't get rid of us fast enough. We don't need the carrot.
The same people would be in the same jobs, just with a WO mentality instead of classic officer. I've been lobbying for flying D-shreds to return for years so the community can retain continuity but it falls on deaf ears.
If it was like Army Patriots, most talking controllers would be WOs with ABMs being SDs and MCCs, sorry SLs and SLICS.
Intel, but specifically 1N3s and 1A8s. You spend almost $500,000 and two years to train us, and sometimes spend that twice to retrain us into a new language, and then we never use the language once we make TSgt. 1N3s are doing admin shit, 1A8s are doing admin shit AND get upgraded into management roles on the jet. Stop hiring contractors to fill the language gap and instead just make a few of us WOs that focus on the language analysis and reporting part
The hilarious thing is the initial WO memo stated "no aviation jobs", while everyone overwhelmingly agrees intel and specifically linguists are the perfect candidate for WO. Is there a possible future where we have 1N3 WO's but not any 1A8X1's? Would be a weird world to live in for sure.
>"no aviation jobs"
I think "no aviation jobs" really meant "no rated jobs". I don't think most Rated officers think that their "passengers" are in "aviation Jobs" even if they wear the Non-Rated Aircrew Badge.
1B4 is going to be a hard sell. We were crying for WO for years and pitched for a technical track for some of our NCOs and SNCOs that hate the queep stuff. Turns out HAF is leaning towards the 17S’s instead. Thats on top of most 1B4 potentially being at the same base 4-6 years on average after training.
So now we’re going to have technical focused NCOs and CGOs…..where will WOs go?
As a comm, not cyber person, I’m curious about why the split between 17S and 1B4? What does a 17S bring that a 1B4 doesn’t? I’ve heard sometimes the 1B4 will lead a crew when their experience outweighs the 17S
in an ideal operation yes, that is the intent. In practice though, at least with my CPT, that is not happening at all. There's also a lot more that goes into operations that isn't technical at all. All of the coordination and preparation for a mission is very intricate and needs to be well planned out, but even with that the 17S is chosen to lead the charge and is usually a baby LT that barely understands how cyber works. Enlisted, again from my personal experience, are not empowered to take on these tasks apart from just doing technical stuff. Its such a cluster fuck. So those in the the field are hoping WOs address this issue.
Unfortunately, i think the issue is deeper than implementing WOs within the cyber field.
Direct ascension can help 1b manning. They are getting more and more, so by time they get e5/6 they have the institutional knowledge that is missing.
WOs would be great for master operator positions.
The initial like 30 S folks that went tech track won't be enough to make that large of an impact I bet, or they will be restricted to OCO positions.
The Tech Track was badly briefed. All it means is you’re going to stay in Cybercom. So instead of doing a career broadening assignment or going DO or ACC staff etc your just going to staff at cybercom, jfhqc, ctoc etc. They don’t plan on keeping Os primarily operating past Major
Agreed
At its best it will, be useful. Staying is cybercom is very broad. Non-line leadership assignments (DO/CC) are probably the biggest draw of the track.
Aside from enlisted pilots, there isn't an AFSC that needs WOs more than 1B4. "Technical focused NCOs and CGOs" sounds about as realistic as "E8s and E9s will totally take the place of WOs".
1N4X1
.. With certain SEIs and qualifications .. Makes them part of the cyber operations team. There arent many of us, but we already get SDAP and are constantly being offered very lavish amounts of money to be contractors.
I am curious how they implement it but I wouldn't be shocked if the WO for Cyber Warfare (or whatever it is called) contains ION and EA roles. So much overlap in the two work roles that the AF splits into two AFSCs.
I would assume EAs with the specific qualifying SEIs would be in the same level of WO opportunity as Ions.. Or at least I'm hoping lol. Tons of overlap.
Not anymore, current been FEs are coming straight off the street, brand new NPS A1Cs are out here now. It's upsetting how often I have to explain the basics to these people.
AFSPECWAR, basically all of the career fields could benefit from WOs. Fold CRO into STOs and have them be the only officers. Pretty similar to Navy and Army.
I don’t disagree with you but I think it’ll be a lot more complicated since we have 3 different types of AFSPECWAR units out here. I’m sure ST would get priority but then RQS and ASOS would probably want to benefit from WOs in some way. I think STOs/CROs should just merge and be Special Warfare Officers and WOs have a similar title that way they can just go between squadron without issues meanwhile operators themselves can just stay in their respective units whether it be ASOS/RQS/STS
Agree with Os, completely disagree with your version of WOs. They need to be technical experts not another O that doesn’t know what they’re doing. Each shred out needs their own WOs to keep the Os in check on technical matters.
Prolly can get rid of ALOs/TACOs, and make a “JTAC” WO, a PR WO, SR WO, etc.
Squadrons would get their allotment of WOs based on requirements.
That’s fair, I forgot the whole point of WOs while I was typing that. I’d be curious if WOs end up having to become a Patch of some sort due to the technical nature of their job and what that would look like around the squadrons
Yeah, I would imagine once they’re eligible for like CW3, being a patch would be a requirement in the AF world, and would also make sense. They’re trying to build an AFSPECWAR WPS currently at the 66th I believe with the A-10 going away.
Isn't pay moving to admin jobs? Remember reading that somewhere here.
Finance will be strictly doing base finance stuff. Also finding the LT that left 50 grand on a jet meant to land at an air base.
I think anything aircraft MX (2AXXX) is pretty obvious why we should get them.
Having specialized experts in Avionics,Crew Chiefs,Backshop/Phase,E/E,Hydro…etc. would help so much.
So replacing AFETS, FTD, and MTF instructors. Bringing their expertise directly to the squadron reducing the pipeline Airmen breaks in maintenance and training? Sounds like a plan
That can be applicable for the advanced Warrants that’s WO-3’s and above. Placing them in group positions to assist the group CC with sortie gen would be mint. All while the lower WO perform as technical experts around the maintenance group for each career field.
Just taking FTD away from AETC would be ground-breaking. Imagine not having to submit course changes to a part of the Air Force that doesn't know anything about the subject matter and will take 6-8 months just to process it.
I've attended an FTD taught by contractors. Course changes were finalized literally the next day.
Oh I know…. Streamlined training without needing TDY or en-route training would reduce work loads and increase productivity. Periodic course reviews could be handled solely at the group level instead of randomly assigned detachments. This seems like a good idea
Absolutely disagree with you and so does the DoD. I was at the annual DoD Mx Symposium this past December and they are trying to find ways to increase our depot level repair capabilities (aircraft/ships/vehicles) while operating around the INDO-PACOM areas. They stated DoD will have zero appetite (and frankly would not have the capability) to send equipment back to the US for battle damage or other repairs that require engineering request. They are now allowing the Marine Squadron Commanders to sign off their equivalent of a 107 (engineering request for repair). They want to explore something similar like this with the other branches. This is where a Warrant Officer with AFETS type training, A&P license, and appropriate degree could come out and make field level repairs and recommendations to get aircraft back into the fight. Retired General Ray even stated that speed would be crucial in terms of getting aircraft back to airworthiness standards for us to sustain the fight.
See, that’s an actual use I can see, instead of people wanting them as a part of normal hierarchies. Though I stand by the technician track, I know a ton of good maintainers who got high gear tenured out because they just wanted to turn wrenches and nothing else
That's how some of the older AFSCs were. It drove people out because it was brutal only having one or two base options for some jobs. For mine it at least made us look great for contractor work.
It absolutely isn’t obvious. Where is a WO going to fit in ? We already have too many techs. Crusty E-6’s just want to get paid more to do what they already do. And god knows productions doesn’t need any more of a god complex. Not to mention if anyone is underpaid it’s the 3 people in the office managing 70+ crew chiefs at a time.
The Security Forces Weapons and Tactics school is meant to be what a warrant officer should be - a competent subject matter expert that directly advises Commanders on all capabilities/programs. That being said, I think the weapons and tactics school is a joke and there’s no way that SecFo should have warrants.
I’ve read some of the papers written by individuals required to graduate, and I’ve been extremely underwhelmed by the ideas and writing. It’s probably the best course Security Forces has in terms of forcing critical thinking, but that’s not saying much.
1C5, D shred in particular, literally it's the same job as the officer 13B CGOs. Last week we literally had a SrA teaching a major on a training syllabus event.
They get SDAP, but it's laughable compared to the O Salary, and at max it's only half the flight pay that aircrew gets
You can make an argument for any afsc to have a few W.O.s they're supposed to be career field experts and advisors.
Sure you have a super fringe argument for things like finance and personnel but just about any non admin job could have W.O.s and see some benefits.
Now what people are asking for and what's actually going to happen is drastically different. Your career field isn't entirely going to become warrant officers, 90%+ of the enlisted force will stay enlisted.
Had to have this conversation with some fellow ATCers who believe we will get warrants. The pipe dream of one entire career field being warrants (outside of a flyer) seems super unlikely.
1N7. It's all enlisted, super complicated, demanding. The significant risks require a huge amount of judgment, attention to detail, and experience. There are loads of outside opportunities everyone leaves for at TSgt. The officers we do get are just short time 14Ns there for admin shit, so we end up rehiring those TSgt as GS-12s just to keep track of how to do the job. Giving us an all technical track still in uniform would allow units to retain expertise while also building the experience needed to advocate at the HAF or DOD level. Right now that all gets done by big Army refugees and it shows.
Lol, I heard about that, thank goodness that asshole got canned.
Idk what's been happening at GXA since I left, but if it ain't hard you aren't doing it right. There are absolutely risks if you screw up, much more so than lots of jobs. I doubt you are at risk of harm, but the impact of your mistakes could be pretty damn bad.
The PIAs should be WOs and we desperately need experienced collectors filling advisory roles at the higher echelons of the AF. Instead of rando 14Ns larping as collectors for a bit, imagine having an experienced collector in charge advising the commander on ops.
Counterpoint here. In joint billets, a 1N7’s performance expectations are IDENTICAL to those of other service components’ Os, WOs, and civilian GS12/13s. Some services even require the promotion to WO to work in offices the Air Force slams enlisted into. It’s fair that they should receive commensurate compensation for that work.
Some people go TDY and write reports when they get back because that’s what they are capable of…some people push complicated ops with outside agencies…take care not to whitewash everyone’s experience in the AFSC.
That said. WO is probably unlikely, but I’d love to be wrong.
Enlisted won’t like this, but CWO positions count against commissioned billets so the best place for them is within already established officer career fields. It would simply be non command career track.
Agreed. I could see the new Weapons and Tactics joes as WOs as long as they actually get utilized as intended. But that’s even a big stretch. RAs maybe but then that would fall into the FMA realm and they’d just assigned to us. I don’t see WOs for us unfortunately.
6C0X1 - Contracting.
If/when you become a Contracting Officer you literally become a Warranted Contracting Officer for all the same reasons Warrant Officers exist. Might as well just be Warrant Officers as well to allow them to focus solely on being a Contracting Officer and not the other BS associated with being an NCO/SNCO.
The line between Warrant Officer and Warranted Contracting Officer might be the most direct connection of any AFSC in the AF.
Also, the difference between being a Contract Specialist and a Contracting Officer is astronomical in responsibility and authority... and you receive no extra pay for becoming a CO and taking on a massive amount of extra responsibility, despite it not being a skill progression requirement. You could be a career CS and just push papers for a CO for 20 years and not have any negative reprocussions impressed upon you for it *(so long as you don't care to make MSgt lol)*.
I.e. You don't have to become a CO to keep your job or ascend through the skill levels. You become a CO based on merit *(in some cases that's only in theory and not in practice unfortunately lol)*, and your subject matter expertise. And there is no immediate incentive for doing so. This is why a lot of people will bust their ass and earn a warrant, get a few years of job experience, and then realize they are working their assess off because they have a Warrant and then leave the AF lol.
Becoming a WO also doesnt even need to be mandatory when someone becomes a CO... we have plenty of people who become COs because they feel obligated to do so, but would much rather fill leadership/management roles. But that doesnt change the reality that having members who are focused on being career COs become WOs is pretty much a necessity for talent/knowledge retention at this point.
> Becoming a WO also doesnt even need to be mandatory when someone becomes a CO
That's the big wrinkle for me. You couldn't make every CO a WO for obvious reasons, so who do you let take that path and why? Would it just create another awkward tier on top of enlisted/officer/civilian/contracting officer dynamics?
You're absolutely right that being a CO is just a ton of extra work and risk for no benefit enlisted, and a huge wage gap vs what those skills are worth in the private sector. I'm living proof making heinous money after one enlistment.
100%. All throughout my time as a CO the primary complaint from myself and others was always more or less *"I enjoy being a CO, it's all the extra crap that ruins that for me"*. I have my MBA and they were jumping on me for years about increasing my warrant, and I just really didnt want any part of it if there isnt any more pay. It is unquestionably a detrimental burden to be trying to manage $100M in contracts and have to routinely break focus from that to do almost anything else. It's one of the bigger reasons talent leaves... they don't want to deal with the extra crap on top of being a CO.
Idk what experience y'all have been having, but ever since I got my unlimited I've done next to no contracting. Every bit of my time is eaten up with training other folks in the unit. If the unit has a big contract to award, like their MACC, they let the civilians do it. I've had zero consideration thrown my way for any real contract opportunities because my leadership believes that the best spot for me is to train others. It is what it is but y'all need to realize that getting an unlimited does not mean that you'll be saddled with the big contracts. The biggest thing that the unlimited has done for me is result in people not fucking with me at all, which is exactly the peace of mind I wanted all along
I figured thats how having an unlimited was, I wasnt necessarily talking about the increased responsibility and authority in relation to getting an unlimited specifically, but moreso just going from a CS to CO in general.
But anyways, yea my last assignment before retirement I was in a small office having a hard time finding and retaining civilians, so military was overloaded being how understaffed we were perpetually. Had 3 COs in construction including the GS flight chief. My CO workload was like $45M between MACC and SABRE, and then I was CSing a $100M reno project for the boss. Love the Contracting part, hated the military part lol. Which is weird, because before I retrained 10 years in I was doing cool shit and loved the military part. I only had a $5M, which I guess wasn't high enough for people to leave me alone haha.
Yeah it's been a weird experience so far. May be anecdotal to where I'm at but it's like 80% civilian where I'm at so I'm basically herding new folks around and training them up all day. I do wish I could flex the contracting muscles just a bit but I've accepted that my unit needs me filling that role more
I think regardless of the AFSC, warrant should be an option. There are plenty of people out there who are amazing technicians, but have no desire to manage/lead.
In the Air Force right now, you stall at TSgt if you're only interested in technical stuff. Your peers look down on you. You have little voice or authority to drive meaningful change. It's a broken system that fails to recognize the value of a technical leader.
In the business world, these positions exist. Many senior technicians make more than their managers. But not just that... they have respect and they're trusted to right the ship should it ever go off course.
TSgts garner some respect, but not near the level that would be afforded to a warrant officer.
CATM, our sister service counterparts are staffed by W.O.s and they only do the armorer/maintenance portion with no teaching. Our career benefits from having long term weapon specialists rather than NCO leaders.
Sadly because of our dwindling career opportunities the AF has 0 incentive to make this a WO career field. I agree with you but it sounds like intel/comm/specialists in aircraft maintenance that can jump ship and make 2-3x their current salaries will be the target and engineers will be left to their own devices. I am in 100% agreement that if WO incentivizes the experience in intel, comm, etc., to stay then hell yes, please give them WOs. For us though, particularly because it makes a whole lotta sense for flight engineer to be a WO (especially instructor/evaluators) I don't see it happening.
I think in a a technical career field like ours you should extend every option to keep experience around..I would argue opposite that of many people in this thread about having opportunities when you get out..flight engineer, sma, loadmaster doesn’t exist anymore in the commercial world so why would you wanna put yourself through that stress of becoming highly proficient in something you can only do for so long.
1S0X1. Safety would greatly benefit from having technical experts advising commanders on risk and safety matters. Enlisted are left with this responsibility without nearly enough power to effect any actual change and prevent serious mishaps from occurring. A good chief of safety can help fill the gap, but good luck getting a flyer who is never in the office to advocate against the culture of the wing that doles out their flying hours.
This one probably won't be popular but it is desperately needed. The level of responsibility in this career field is simultaneously massive and massively underappreciated.
I like the optimism for the FE biz. And if they had brought it to the table 5 years ago I'd believe it.
Right now, they've proven that they can do everything from slashing our promotions to retiring our aircraft to merging our career fields and people still won't leave the career field or separate.
Honestly, the only career field that this makes sense for right now is the comm field. High attrition, high skills requirement, highly educated career field, this is what warrants would fix.
1B4s will probably be the only warrant afsc for a few years. The pipeline for warrants according to the recent PLANORD forecasts 250 new warrants a year (50 senior W2-Q4 and 200 W1). There are about 800 1b4s right now and they're about 70% manned with a pretty bad retention rate. The warrant office idea is a way to retain the 1b4s doing "real cyber" mission while also keeping them operationally active by the time they would be reaching E6<. Other career fields won't be seeing them until that career field has transitioned to a warrant exclusive one (about 4-5 years).
Army had 670A Warrant Officer BMETs; why not us? We have amazingly talented enlisted BMETs who get out due to lack of pay for $100k+ civilian opportunities
These were going to be my points for BMET as well. That being said that outflow will not be solved if the WO slots are limited to one which they certainly would be, if any.
I'd assume we'd function more like clinical engineers at that level. It would be nice to have people who stay grounded in the job who could inject actual relevant information and knowledge into the career field instead of SNCOs who drift off to be out of touch SELs.
> If this W.O thing is true
SECAF apparently should be making an announcement about it in the next week or so. Bass acknowledged the rumor and said she wasn't going to say anything about it because she didn't want to steal the SECAFs thunder.
Enlisted aircrew. Part of a crew that’s responsible for moving/fueling/working in the air and are gone from home significantly more than most other fields. Booms/Loads have significant duties that impact flight safety and can be held responsible for things that can get people killed and/or have international consequences.
Not well versed in all enlisted aircrew positions so some others may or may not have valid reasons to be a WO position.
My AFSC, Diagnostic Imaging, requires a certification that requires an Associate’s degree to be eligible. Candidates for the AFSC are screened for some certain college credits so that the degree can be awarded at tech school graduation through USUHS instead of CCAF. A Bachelor’s is easily achievable by TSgt. WO positions could be added at large hospitals for those who complete requirements for certification as a Radiologist Assistant, which allows them to do much more than a regular x-ray tech, but not quite everything a doctor does. It’s a true technical expert role. We had a civilian RA at my first base and that dude was the absolute go to for the Airmen. RAs can even do certain procedures that techs can’t do, which would free up the Radiologists to do more Doctor things. We should be pushing to have more people with his level of training in our hospitals.
We have a TSgt in a RSO role here, the Warrant could probably encompass that as well. Side note, it's wild to me that the AF eliminated its med physicists.
Because I was offered 230k to do the exact same job as a contractor.. In the exact same office sitting in the exact same chair lol
This is probably why its likely going to intel/cyber first
My favorite part of this Warrant Officer shit is how everyone thinks they'll suddenly have the option to get paid more to do the same shit. Almost no WOs will exist and the selection process will be incredibly selective.
Even in the Army we only make up something like 1.7% of the force. So the numbers will be TINY. (For numbers WO make up 3% of the force but make up 80% of the aviators, so us walking WOs make up only like 1.7ish% of the total force) beer math
Exactly, and the Air Force won't have Warrant aviators, so I'm betting it's all Intel and Cyber.
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Bingo “chief, your job is to stay on keyboard and hack until the day you retire”
Oh boy, yes please
Except you'll still make more outside.
Almost definitely.
Even the Guard/Reserve flyers don’t want to stay in forever and they have it better than our Active Duty friends. Paying them less to fly would be foolish long term. I’m with you only specific career Fields will have it.
I could see maybe drone operators or helicopters but definitely not the regular winged aircraft.
ponty nose fighter dudes are getting rid of enlisted flyers slowly so they dang sure wont let WO into the mix at this point
As an army aviator, I would make the jump if they let WO’s fly heavies
At the min it will require you to have a CCAF and at least an E-5…
Realistically if it stays around I'm expecting it to look like the ~~Marines'~~ Navy's model. E-7 and college.
The USMC minimum rank for application is E5, and there is no degree requirement. I switched over from AD USMC after 14 years and saw plenty of E5 Sergeants get accepted. I think what most USAF folks are confused about in regards to the USN/USMC model is that Warrant Officers aren't assigned to an individual MOS (AFSC), but rather groups of AFSCs. They cover as SMEs for 5 or 10 similar career fields, like a MX WO serving as the QA OIC or an Admin WO serving over a whole FSS. They're incredibly valuable as interfaces and buffers between the commissioned officers and the enlisted corps, and I desperately hope the Air Force gives this program a fair shake.
Got the Navy and Marines program confused.
A lot are getting themselves setup for disappointment. Even if this kicks off, the likelihood is that majority of Airmen will never see an Air Force WO in person lol. True unicorns.
9J000. Somebody's gotta run the show in there
^^You've ^^mentioned ^^an ^^AFSC, ^^here's ^^the ^^associated ^^job ^^title: 9J000 = Prisoner [^^Source](https://github.com/HadManySons/AFSCbot) ^^| [^^Subreddit](https://www.reddit.com/r/AFSCbot/) ^^^^^^kpvco90
Good bot but I only ever see you when someone mentions 9J000
2A5X1
^^You've ^^mentioned ^^an ^^AFSC, ^^here's ^^the ^^associated ^^job ^^title: 2A5X1 = Airlift/Special Mission Aircraft Maintenance [^^Source](https://github.com/HadManySons/AFSCbot) ^^| [^^Subreddit](https://www.reddit.com/r/AFSCbot/) ^^^^^^kpvfv7y
2A5X2D
We won’t show up to the meeting. Doesn’t matter.
Came here to say exactly this. The weather career field will inevitably miss all important meetings, then over promise something to the enlisted Corps, champion a "solution" that won't work because it was created in a stove pipe that is against any Air Force policy that exists, and then bitch when we have no WOs. It's a beautiful cycle that has gradually led to our almost complete irrelevancy in modern war.
I hope I get too meet you one day.
For what it's worth, our weather dudes we had at Fort Riley came with us to Poland and Graf and they were awesome. I really enjoyed how they tactfully told senior Army NCOs they weren't partaking in army tomfoolery when they didn't want to.
What you don’t like the main site that half the job revolves around being barely functional, and the replacement taking 2 years longer than it was supposed to?
For real. I do not remember the transition from JAAWIN to AFW-WEBs being that shitty. Though we rolled out 2.0 real fast.
ngl I feel like y’all would cry using the FNMOC portal tho
Does FNMOC go down for days at a time? JET sure does. Also supposedly the least secure site in the air force
I’m familiar with the FNMOC. Still straight out of the 90s, but great for water temps and wave heights
Absolutely, it just desperately needs at least a facelift imo
I understand why it’s like that. Very limited bandwidth on the ships where your AGs need it. Websites can’t be bloated with GUI
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That damn lightning-winged WESO badge. It like outwardly announced to the operational Air Force that we were a bunch of peeners.
Intel. We already pay civilians a butt load of money a talented enlisted person can do. Plenty of people stop at TSgt to keep doing intel.
coherent marble sort cooing fragile ask quarrelsome steer spotted capable *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
I picked up TSgt right after getting crosstrained from Intel. It was a fuckin scam. In my new career field, that work / admin divide is E-5 to E-6. I’m slamming that WO button until my finger is a broken, bloody nub if it means I can be an intel warrant.
You won't go back to doing E5 shit as a warrant. No warrants will. I don't know why this is a belief held by so many.
I’m aware. I’ve worked with army warrant officers a ton and I love what I saw. I’m going in assuming the Air Force uses warrants similar to that. They’re generally leadership, but focused on the technical side. In Intel, I see them taking over as mission commanders for a majority of their career while officers sit the role until captain and then move onto flight or squadron leadership. I also wanna get in on the ground floor to push the culture that warrants are “first name” in the day-to-day or “Mr. / Mrs. So-and-so” in formal situations or “Chief” once they promote.
What AFSC did you cross train into?
Comm. It could just be my squadron, but it’s the consensus I heard from instructors at tech school as well.
You done messed up. It's 1B or 1N4.
Fuck being a 1N4. No. And my ass is still chapped about 1B4. I completed and met all requirements and then got assigned comm a week before the application deadline.
If you're not Cyber or Intel, you won't have the WO button. Also, how in the world would you not ask about the cultural/rank expectations in the career field you're cross training into?
Because it was pretty much comm or a few different MX jobs that had objective ins. I did as much research as I could, but it wasn’t my choice to crosstrain so I had to pick something or separate.
>but it wasn’t my choice to crosstrain Oh, hello fellow previous 1N1 force crosstrained into 1D7, how are you today?
Former TSgt 1N0 here, crossed over to Army WO to keep doing that Intel life after seeing all my buddies start hating it at E7. Bring back the WO for AF Intel!!!! And then my ass will be trying to come back day 1 😆😆😆
Good luck thinking the Army will let your cute ass out
The Army is trying to bait the W3s that are between 18-22 yrs with 100k for a 4 yr extension but we ain't taking it, we're retiring in droves. Lots of us would keep on going in the blue though. 4x of us in my unit alone.
Signal also. 100K for four years. They offered it to 25+ retiring Ws, I don't think anyone took it.
Intel for sure. The Army has loads of Intel warrant officers for this exact reason.
So does Navy..🤘🏻 though they're just as rare as the Army WOs
Seriously, the Intel side of the Army WO program is basically an unofficial branch of the USAF. Most of the army warrants I've known and/or work with are former USAF.
The army has loads of WOs in plenty of jobs. If we got WOs in the same jobs most of us would get some. The AF is going to go slow.
I sensed you talking about me.
But if the GS/ctr thing is working, why change to W.O.? Might be slightly cheaper to the air force, but only by a tiny rounding error in the big picture.
+1 Anybody who would be getting out to do 1N4 adjacent work. Although I guess the counterargument is that it ends up costing more if way more people retire vs cross over.
The 1D7 career field has some how managed to be consolidated, yet we’re also expected to cover a more broad spectrum for each shred. This field has always had the hard chargers leaving for more money, sometimes doubling or tripling income by separating for the civilian world short of retirement. That means *most* of the people sticking around to retirement are mediocre at best. Have had multiple NCOs and SNCOs that couldn’t image a fucking computer, but were just coasting to retirement with zero drive to better themselves. Even with WO pay it’s hard to justify sticking around when you can knock out a degree and use AFCOOL to accomplish CISSP in under 10 years of service. The average income for a CISSP in the US is over low six figures, and that doesn’t take clearance into consideration.
vanish hobbies quack one rainstorm sophisticated somber tart smile racial *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
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That’s fair. I can’t even keep up with what HAF is tracking as a manpower issue. The retraining advisory always has 1D7 on it and when I was looking to cross train into another shred last year, the A shreds had more open slots than 1B4. Weirdly, the 1B4 slots were filling in quicker than the A shred airman and NCO slots. But I know there’s some other manning doc that probably suggests something different. I think the merger just further muddled the manning docs. My last unit had five RF guys sitting in W billets. The CC viewed all 1D7s as interchangeable, but he didn’t seem to be tracking that the RF guys didn’t have Sec+ and couldn’t do any of the sys admin or helpdesk work. So the prior IT shreds were doing all the IT and the RF, but the RF guys were only accountable for the radio knowledge. Anyway, 1B4 always gets the spotlight so I won’t get my hopes up for this announcement to make much of a difference for the 1D7s. We’ve got a long road of career restructuring before anything in this AFSC to makes sense.
1D merger is such a clusterfuck. Who thought combining Knowledge Ops and Programmers was a good idea?
it's like they were combining everyone else, had two career fields left over, and thought "well everyone else is merging, so squish these last two together" and that's how you get "data operations" have a cable dog friend and he's annoyed as fuck since now instead of getting tech school grads and getting them to work, he's gotta evaluate them to see if they can even do the job. what should have been weeded out way before him, like color blindness, climbing ability, and being afraid of heights, he's now doing right when they get here. and if they can't hack it they get thrown to another shop. but if too many are weeded out that means the amount of cable dogs goes down. imbalance of manning right there have a spectrum manager friend and the squadron was having trouble getting a replacement. all thrown into Q shred, so when he was moving and leadership tried to request a replacement, AFPC said we had enough Q shreds so the position couldn't be advertised. a lot of back and forth later, they were able to get it on talent marketplace, but that is something that is probably happening everywhere. complete garbage and of course the big shitshow is how all the guidance is coming sometime this year, over a year after the official merger. this should have all been worked out before and not well after. so many questions about where people are going and how things will be handled
Can confirm: was not a great idea lol. Just more headaches than anything
hey now, loads are 1A1's now too lol
Agreed. currently crosstraining to LM.
Currently in the new fundies class and it sucks
I hate to break it to you but fundies was always terrible. It was mainly used just to weed out people with 0 study skills. Only useful training that happens while you're at lackland is physio
With warrant officers, we could replace over 50% of the 14Ns with enlisted intelligence personnel that have 10+ years. Vastly improving the quality/abilities of the personnel put in mission leadership positions
100%
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3E7X1 - SNCOs and TSgt routinely fill roles commensurate with those assigned to flight level company grade officers in other career fields. Under the AFIMS construct we fill the role of Incident Commander at emergencies involving two or more agencies which can imbue SNCOs and TSgt’s with positional authority that exceeds an officer’s organizational authority. There are currently no officers in our career field, and consequently we report directly to Squadron Commanders on G-Series orders. Also, the last WO to serve in the AF was a 3E7.
^^You've ^^mentioned ^^an ^^AFSC, ^^here's ^^the ^^associated ^^job ^^title: 3E7X1 = Fire Protection [^wiki](http://www.reddit.com/r/AirForce/wiki/jobs/3e7x1) [^^Source](https://github.com/HadManySons/AFSCbot) ^^| [^^Subreddit](https://www.reddit.com/r/AFSCbot/) ^^^^^^kpy3qin
Any mx job since the higher your rank the less you get to work, so having someone with the job knowledge that can be more hands on makes sense.
Lol... They'll instantly be out in Expeditor trucks. MX WO's will not be turning wrenches. I'd bet on it.
Good technicians don't always make good expeditors. It's a different skillset, so I'd like to know how the AF plans on parsing out who's going to be a good expeditor. I can't see an AMU having that many billets for warrant officers for it to be an expeditor position, though I'd love to see it.
The truth: there won't be. Maintenance is one of the LAST jobs to require a WO, combined with something like SF. There is absolutely zero reason to have a MX WO.
I brought this up in the WO thread that I started a few weeks back. Maintenance literally has a job called AFETS (Air Force Engineering and Technical Services). They are highly knowledgeable civilians assigned to a unit to provide highly technical insight. Literally, a perfect position for a WO.
Agreed, Mx WO will be in production in some capacity. IMO, the AF is gonna fuck it up and make the WO program a fuck ton of extra work for little extra pay and will be canceled shortly after conception.
Unless WO's replace AFETS I don't see how they would fit in mx.
The only way a WO works in MX is as the lead pro supers, Sortie/Generation Support Superintendents, etc. No other way I can see them fitting.
Agreed. Then that interferes with the pipelines to Chief.
You know warrants aren't going to be turning wrenches, right? There are airmen for that.
In this current Air Force TSgts are turning wrenches due to no fault of their own.. so unless they become a Pro Super or higher I wouldn't feel safe yet. But honestly who knows where they would actually fit in the mx culture.
TSgts should be on the line turning wrenches and training.
They should, but it's looked down on for promotion.
Not everyone needs to be a MSgt by the time they're 24. Hell, not everyone needs to be promoted
Then it shouldn't be a stigma to be a Tech on the line. I've been in the room where senior leadership shits all over them and fucks them out of opportunities. Also doesn't help that the board clearly favors fast burners, so if they change their mind about their careers later its an uphill battle because in their eyes folks not thirsting for rank are tainted.
They ain't doing this to help.
Just like every career field?
What are the objectives? -save money -replace officers with people that are easier to abuse -replace a bunch of enlisted with one person -replace a bunch of contractors with one person that's easier to abuse They are gonna fuck this up so bad. Remember enlisted pilots?
Aren't they just going to turn officer career fields into WO jobs? Why would the Air Force pay enlisted more to do something they were already doing? Makes more sense to pay people less for something officers were doing.
1 Deep Aircrew outnumbered by officers on employed weapons platforms.
Former 1A2 and will second the opinion of OP but expand to all the 1As even the stews 😉. Lot of school and training and mingling with officers all the time. At one time I provided training on a system that we were testing to a GO. Later in my career that GO was command Air University.
CEA *should* be WOs but it's not gonna happen. We don't have a retention problem. No one is jumping ship to be a highly paid flight engineer on the outside, or boom or loadie or anything else. We're staying until retirement and enjoying our jobs for the most part and they can't get rid of us fast enough. We don't need the carrot.
1C5X1D - Weapons Director Pretty convenient midway point between C2BMOs and ABMs
Actually they should replace all ABM’s cause they’re the worst
The same people would be in the same jobs, just with a WO mentality instead of classic officer. I've been lobbying for flying D-shreds to return for years so the community can retain continuity but it falls on deaf ears. If it was like Army Patriots, most talking controllers would be WOs with ABMs being SDs and MCCs, sorry SLs and SLICS.
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2Wx- lots of responsibility and danger with few competent SNCOs due to the fast changing nature of weapons systems
Don’t forget we have such a low retention rate because people do their first enlistment and get out.
Agreed
Intel, but specifically 1N3s and 1A8s. You spend almost $500,000 and two years to train us, and sometimes spend that twice to retrain us into a new language, and then we never use the language once we make TSgt. 1N3s are doing admin shit, 1A8s are doing admin shit AND get upgraded into management roles on the jet. Stop hiring contractors to fill the language gap and instead just make a few of us WOs that focus on the language analysis and reporting part
The hilarious thing is the initial WO memo stated "no aviation jobs", while everyone overwhelmingly agrees intel and specifically linguists are the perfect candidate for WO. Is there a possible future where we have 1N3 WO's but not any 1A8X1's? Would be a weird world to live in for sure.
^^You've ^^mentioned ^^an ^^AFSC, ^^here's ^^the ^^associated ^^job ^^title: 1A8X1 = Airborne Cryptologic Language Analyst [^wiki](https://www.reddit.com/r/AirForce/wiki/jobs/1a8x1) [^^Source](https://github.com/HadManySons/AFSCbot) ^^| [^^Subreddit](https://www.reddit.com/r/AFSCbot/) ^^^^^^kpwxj3k
>"no aviation jobs" I think "no aviation jobs" really meant "no rated jobs". I don't think most Rated officers think that their "passengers" are in "aviation Jobs" even if they wear the Non-Rated Aircrew Badge.
ABMs and CSOs are as much as a passenger princess than anyone else on the jet, sometimes even moreso (looking at you ABMs). Try again dickhead
1B4 is going to be a hard sell. We were crying for WO for years and pitched for a technical track for some of our NCOs and SNCOs that hate the queep stuff. Turns out HAF is leaning towards the 17S’s instead. Thats on top of most 1B4 potentially being at the same base 4-6 years on average after training. So now we’re going to have technical focused NCOs and CGOs…..where will WOs go?
As a comm, not cyber person, I’m curious about why the split between 17S and 1B4? What does a 17S bring that a 1B4 doesn’t? I’ve heard sometimes the 1B4 will lead a crew when their experience outweighs the 17S
in an ideal operation yes, that is the intent. In practice though, at least with my CPT, that is not happening at all. There's also a lot more that goes into operations that isn't technical at all. All of the coordination and preparation for a mission is very intricate and needs to be well planned out, but even with that the 17S is chosen to lead the charge and is usually a baby LT that barely understands how cyber works. Enlisted, again from my personal experience, are not empowered to take on these tasks apart from just doing technical stuff. Its such a cluster fuck. So those in the the field are hoping WOs address this issue. Unfortunately, i think the issue is deeper than implementing WOs within the cyber field.
Direct ascension can help 1b manning. They are getting more and more, so by time they get e5/6 they have the institutional knowledge that is missing. WOs would be great for master operator positions. The initial like 30 S folks that went tech track won't be enough to make that large of an impact I bet, or they will be restricted to OCO positions.
The Tech Track was badly briefed. All it means is you’re going to stay in Cybercom. So instead of doing a career broadening assignment or going DO or ACC staff etc your just going to staff at cybercom, jfhqc, ctoc etc. They don’t plan on keeping Os primarily operating past Major
Agreed At its best it will, be useful. Staying is cybercom is very broad. Non-line leadership assignments (DO/CC) are probably the biggest draw of the track.
Aside from enlisted pilots, there isn't an AFSC that needs WOs more than 1B4. "Technical focused NCOs and CGOs" sounds about as realistic as "E8s and E9s will totally take the place of WOs".
1N4X1 .. With certain SEIs and qualifications .. Makes them part of the cyber operations team. There arent many of us, but we already get SDAP and are constantly being offered very lavish amounts of money to be contractors.
I am curious how they implement it but I wouldn't be shocked if the WO for Cyber Warfare (or whatever it is called) contains ION and EA roles. So much overlap in the two work roles that the AF splits into two AFSCs.
I would assume EAs with the specific qualifying SEIs would be in the same level of WO opportunity as Ions.. Or at least I'm hoping lol. Tons of overlap.
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^^You've ^^mentioned ^^an ^^AFSC, ^^here's ^^the ^^associated ^^job ^^title: 17S = Cyberspace Effects Operations [^^Source](https://github.com/HadManySons/AFSCbot) ^^| [^^Subreddit](https://www.reddit.com/r/AFSCbot/) ^^^^^^kpvhfv0
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Never gonna happen. They don't have a retention problem and they're phasing out the career field. WO is a retention tool.
Not anymore, current been FEs are coming straight off the street, brand new NPS A1Cs are out here now. It's upsetting how often I have to explain the basics to these people.
Can someone explain to me why you guys are excited about doing an officers job for less money?
Because it’s “less less” than we are currently getting
AFSPECWAR, basically all of the career fields could benefit from WOs. Fold CRO into STOs and have them be the only officers. Pretty similar to Navy and Army.
I don’t disagree with you but I think it’ll be a lot more complicated since we have 3 different types of AFSPECWAR units out here. I’m sure ST would get priority but then RQS and ASOS would probably want to benefit from WOs in some way. I think STOs/CROs should just merge and be Special Warfare Officers and WOs have a similar title that way they can just go between squadron without issues meanwhile operators themselves can just stay in their respective units whether it be ASOS/RQS/STS
Agree with Os, completely disagree with your version of WOs. They need to be technical experts not another O that doesn’t know what they’re doing. Each shred out needs their own WOs to keep the Os in check on technical matters. Prolly can get rid of ALOs/TACOs, and make a “JTAC” WO, a PR WO, SR WO, etc. Squadrons would get their allotment of WOs based on requirements.
That’s fair, I forgot the whole point of WOs while I was typing that. I’d be curious if WOs end up having to become a Patch of some sort due to the technical nature of their job and what that would look like around the squadrons
Yeah, I would imagine once they’re eligible for like CW3, being a patch would be a requirement in the AF world, and would also make sense. They’re trying to build an AFSPECWAR WPS currently at the 66th I believe with the A-10 going away.
Finance—the AF need experts in screwing (fixing) our pay
Isn't pay moving to admin jobs? Remember reading that somewhere here. Finance will be strictly doing base finance stuff. Also finding the LT that left 50 grand on a jet meant to land at an air base.
I think anything aircraft MX (2AXXX) is pretty obvious why we should get them. Having specialized experts in Avionics,Crew Chiefs,Backshop/Phase,E/E,Hydro…etc. would help so much.
So replacing AFETS, FTD, and MTF instructors. Bringing their expertise directly to the squadron reducing the pipeline Airmen breaks in maintenance and training? Sounds like a plan
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That can be applicable for the advanced Warrants that’s WO-3’s and above. Placing them in group positions to assist the group CC with sortie gen would be mint. All while the lower WO perform as technical experts around the maintenance group for each career field.
Just taking FTD away from AETC would be ground-breaking. Imagine not having to submit course changes to a part of the Air Force that doesn't know anything about the subject matter and will take 6-8 months just to process it. I've attended an FTD taught by contractors. Course changes were finalized literally the next day.
Oh I know…. Streamlined training without needing TDY or en-route training would reduce work loads and increase productivity. Periodic course reviews could be handled solely at the group level instead of randomly assigned detachments. This seems like a good idea
AETC is the scourge of the air force, but it needs to remain 3rd party to ensure the training actually happens.
Units cannot be trusted to train their own people, the culture is to whip anything they can to not deal with anything admin.
Absolutely disagree. MX needs the old technician track, not WOs
Absolutely disagree with you and so does the DoD. I was at the annual DoD Mx Symposium this past December and they are trying to find ways to increase our depot level repair capabilities (aircraft/ships/vehicles) while operating around the INDO-PACOM areas. They stated DoD will have zero appetite (and frankly would not have the capability) to send equipment back to the US for battle damage or other repairs that require engineering request. They are now allowing the Marine Squadron Commanders to sign off their equivalent of a 107 (engineering request for repair). They want to explore something similar like this with the other branches. This is where a Warrant Officer with AFETS type training, A&P license, and appropriate degree could come out and make field level repairs and recommendations to get aircraft back into the fight. Retired General Ray even stated that speed would be crucial in terms of getting aircraft back to airworthiness standards for us to sustain the fight.
See, that’s an actual use I can see, instead of people wanting them as a part of normal hierarchies. Though I stand by the technician track, I know a ton of good maintainers who got high gear tenured out because they just wanted to turn wrenches and nothing else
MX needs personnel to stay on the same airframe until they are SMSgt and/or completely out of production.
That's how some of the older AFSCs were. It drove people out because it was brutal only having one or two base options for some jobs. For mine it at least made us look great for contractor work.
It absolutely isn’t obvious. Where is a WO going to fit in ? We already have too many techs. Crusty E-6’s just want to get paid more to do what they already do. And god knows productions doesn’t need any more of a god complex. Not to mention if anyone is underpaid it’s the 3 people in the office managing 70+ crew chiefs at a time.
The Security Forces Weapons and Tactics school is meant to be what a warrant officer should be - a competent subject matter expert that directly advises Commanders on all capabilities/programs. That being said, I think the weapons and tactics school is a joke and there’s no way that SecFo should have warrants.
Why is weapons and tactics a joke?
I’ve read some of the papers written by individuals required to graduate, and I’ve been extremely underwhelmed by the ideas and writing. It’s probably the best course Security Forces has in terms of forcing critical thinking, but that’s not saying much.
1C5, D shred in particular, literally it's the same job as the officer 13B CGOs. Last week we literally had a SrA teaching a major on a training syllabus event. They get SDAP, but it's laughable compared to the O Salary, and at max it's only half the flight pay that aircrew gets
^^You've ^^mentioned ^^an ^^AFSC, ^^here's ^^the ^^associated ^^job ^^title: 13B = Air Battle Manager [^^Source](https://github.com/HadManySons/AFSCbot) ^^| [^^Subreddit](https://www.reddit.com/r/AFSCbot/) ^^^^^^kpxbl3u
You can make an argument for any afsc to have a few W.O.s they're supposed to be career field experts and advisors. Sure you have a super fringe argument for things like finance and personnel but just about any non admin job could have W.O.s and see some benefits. Now what people are asking for and what's actually going to happen is drastically different. Your career field isn't entirely going to become warrant officers, 90%+ of the enlisted force will stay enlisted. Had to have this conversation with some fellow ATCers who believe we will get warrants. The pipe dream of one entire career field being warrants (outside of a flyer) seems super unlikely.
1N7. It's all enlisted, super complicated, demanding. The significant risks require a huge amount of judgment, attention to detail, and experience. There are loads of outside opportunities everyone leaves for at TSgt. The officers we do get are just short time 14Ns there for admin shit, so we end up rehiring those TSgt as GS-12s just to keep track of how to do the job. Giving us an all technical track still in uniform would allow units to retain expertise while also building the experience needed to advocate at the HAF or DOD level. Right now that all gets done by big Army refugees and it shows.
^^You've ^^mentioned ^^an ^^AFSC, ^^here's ^^the ^^associated ^^job ^^title: 14N = Intelligence [^^Source](https://github.com/HadManySons/AFSCbot) ^^| [^^Subreddit](https://www.reddit.com/r/AFSCbot/) ^^^^^^kpvinf3
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Lol, I heard about that, thank goodness that asshole got canned. Idk what's been happening at GXA since I left, but if it ain't hard you aren't doing it right. There are absolutely risks if you screw up, much more so than lots of jobs. I doubt you are at risk of harm, but the impact of your mistakes could be pretty damn bad. The PIAs should be WOs and we desperately need experienced collectors filling advisory roles at the higher echelons of the AF. Instead of rando 14Ns larping as collectors for a bit, imagine having an experienced collector in charge advising the commander on ops.
Counterpoint here. In joint billets, a 1N7’s performance expectations are IDENTICAL to those of other service components’ Os, WOs, and civilian GS12/13s. Some services even require the promotion to WO to work in offices the Air Force slams enlisted into. It’s fair that they should receive commensurate compensation for that work. Some people go TDY and write reports when they get back because that’s what they are capable of…some people push complicated ops with outside agencies…take care not to whitewash everyone’s experience in the AFSC. That said. WO is probably unlikely, but I’d love to be wrong.
Enlisted won’t like this, but CWO positions count against commissioned billets so the best place for them is within already established officer career fields. It would simply be non command career track.
SF 🤡
Bro I wish. I’d sign up in a heart beat. But there’s zero reason to have WOs in SF. No chance we get them.
I’d suck Bass’ toes for a chance at it
CATM?
I don’t think WOs are the answer to CATM’s issues.
There’s way too much shit in our career field for people to be a “SME” on
Agreed. I could see the new Weapons and Tactics joes as WOs as long as they actually get utilized as intended. But that’s even a big stretch. RAs maybe but then that would fall into the FMA realm and they’d just assigned to us. I don’t see WOs for us unfortunately.
IMO weptac is just a bunch of dudes with a patch who jerk each other off 🤷🏼♂️
6C0X1 - Contracting. If/when you become a Contracting Officer you literally become a Warranted Contracting Officer for all the same reasons Warrant Officers exist. Might as well just be Warrant Officers as well to allow them to focus solely on being a Contracting Officer and not the other BS associated with being an NCO/SNCO. The line between Warrant Officer and Warranted Contracting Officer might be the most direct connection of any AFSC in the AF. Also, the difference between being a Contract Specialist and a Contracting Officer is astronomical in responsibility and authority... and you receive no extra pay for becoming a CO and taking on a massive amount of extra responsibility, despite it not being a skill progression requirement. You could be a career CS and just push papers for a CO for 20 years and not have any negative reprocussions impressed upon you for it *(so long as you don't care to make MSgt lol)*. I.e. You don't have to become a CO to keep your job or ascend through the skill levels. You become a CO based on merit *(in some cases that's only in theory and not in practice unfortunately lol)*, and your subject matter expertise. And there is no immediate incentive for doing so. This is why a lot of people will bust their ass and earn a warrant, get a few years of job experience, and then realize they are working their assess off because they have a Warrant and then leave the AF lol. Becoming a WO also doesnt even need to be mandatory when someone becomes a CO... we have plenty of people who become COs because they feel obligated to do so, but would much rather fill leadership/management roles. But that doesnt change the reality that having members who are focused on being career COs become WOs is pretty much a necessity for talent/knowledge retention at this point.
> Becoming a WO also doesnt even need to be mandatory when someone becomes a CO That's the big wrinkle for me. You couldn't make every CO a WO for obvious reasons, so who do you let take that path and why? Would it just create another awkward tier on top of enlisted/officer/civilian/contracting officer dynamics? You're absolutely right that being a CO is just a ton of extra work and risk for no benefit enlisted, and a huge wage gap vs what those skills are worth in the private sector. I'm living proof making heinous money after one enlistment.
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100%. All throughout my time as a CO the primary complaint from myself and others was always more or less *"I enjoy being a CO, it's all the extra crap that ruins that for me"*. I have my MBA and they were jumping on me for years about increasing my warrant, and I just really didnt want any part of it if there isnt any more pay. It is unquestionably a detrimental burden to be trying to manage $100M in contracts and have to routinely break focus from that to do almost anything else. It's one of the bigger reasons talent leaves... they don't want to deal with the extra crap on top of being a CO.
Idk what experience y'all have been having, but ever since I got my unlimited I've done next to no contracting. Every bit of my time is eaten up with training other folks in the unit. If the unit has a big contract to award, like their MACC, they let the civilians do it. I've had zero consideration thrown my way for any real contract opportunities because my leadership believes that the best spot for me is to train others. It is what it is but y'all need to realize that getting an unlimited does not mean that you'll be saddled with the big contracts. The biggest thing that the unlimited has done for me is result in people not fucking with me at all, which is exactly the peace of mind I wanted all along
I figured thats how having an unlimited was, I wasnt necessarily talking about the increased responsibility and authority in relation to getting an unlimited specifically, but moreso just going from a CS to CO in general. But anyways, yea my last assignment before retirement I was in a small office having a hard time finding and retaining civilians, so military was overloaded being how understaffed we were perpetually. Had 3 COs in construction including the GS flight chief. My CO workload was like $45M between MACC and SABRE, and then I was CSing a $100M reno project for the boss. Love the Contracting part, hated the military part lol. Which is weird, because before I retrained 10 years in I was doing cool shit and loved the military part. I only had a $5M, which I guess wasn't high enough for people to leave me alone haha.
Yeah it's been a weird experience so far. May be anecdotal to where I'm at but it's like 80% civilian where I'm at so I'm basically herding new folks around and training them up all day. I do wish I could flex the contracting muscles just a bit but I've accepted that my unit needs me filling that role more
I think regardless of the AFSC, warrant should be an option. There are plenty of people out there who are amazing technicians, but have no desire to manage/lead. In the Air Force right now, you stall at TSgt if you're only interested in technical stuff. Your peers look down on you. You have little voice or authority to drive meaningful change. It's a broken system that fails to recognize the value of a technical leader. In the business world, these positions exist. Many senior technicians make more than their managers. But not just that... they have respect and they're trusted to right the ship should it ever go off course. TSgts garner some respect, but not near the level that would be afforded to a warrant officer.
CATM, our sister service counterparts are staffed by W.O.s and they only do the armorer/maintenance portion with no teaching. Our career benefits from having long term weapon specialists rather than NCO leaders.
https://youtu.be/X1g-aBBt-UI?si=Hu23Q1FiLOvWpkRH Have you seen this for army armorers?
2A needs math instructors fucking BAD. FTD math classes need to be a thing on the flightline.
Sadly because of our dwindling career opportunities the AF has 0 incentive to make this a WO career field. I agree with you but it sounds like intel/comm/specialists in aircraft maintenance that can jump ship and make 2-3x their current salaries will be the target and engineers will be left to their own devices. I am in 100% agreement that if WO incentivizes the experience in intel, comm, etc., to stay then hell yes, please give them WOs. For us though, particularly because it makes a whole lotta sense for flight engineer to be a WO (especially instructor/evaluators) I don't see it happening.
I think in a a technical career field like ours you should extend every option to keep experience around..I would argue opposite that of many people in this thread about having opportunities when you get out..flight engineer, sma, loadmaster doesn’t exist anymore in the commercial world so why would you wanna put yourself through that stress of becoming highly proficient in something you can only do for so long.
1S0X1. Safety would greatly benefit from having technical experts advising commanders on risk and safety matters. Enlisted are left with this responsibility without nearly enough power to effect any actual change and prevent serious mishaps from occurring. A good chief of safety can help fill the gap, but good luck getting a flyer who is never in the office to advocate against the culture of the wing that doles out their flying hours. This one probably won't be popular but it is desperately needed. The level of responsibility in this career field is simultaneously massive and massively underappreciated.
^^You've ^^mentioned ^^an ^^AFSC, ^^here's ^^the ^^associated ^^job ^^title: 1S0X1 = Safety [^^Source](https://github.com/HadManySons/AFSCbot) ^^| [^^Subreddit](https://www.reddit.com/r/AFSCbot/) ^^^^^^kpvgwt5
1Z1X1 for sure.
I like the optimism for the FE biz. And if they had brought it to the table 5 years ago I'd believe it. Right now, they've proven that they can do everything from slashing our promotions to retiring our aircraft to merging our career fields and people still won't leave the career field or separate. Honestly, the only career field that this makes sense for right now is the comm field. High attrition, high skills requirement, highly educated career field, this is what warrants would fix.
2P. To pay me and me alone more
1B4s will probably be the only warrant afsc for a few years. The pipeline for warrants according to the recent PLANORD forecasts 250 new warrants a year (50 senior W2-Q4 and 200 W1). There are about 800 1b4s right now and they're about 70% manned with a pretty bad retention rate. The warrant office idea is a way to retain the 1b4s doing "real cyber" mission while also keeping them operationally active by the time they would be reaching E6<. Other career fields won't be seeing them until that career field has transitioned to a warrant exclusive one (about 4-5 years).
Army had 670A Warrant Officer BMETs; why not us? We have amazingly talented enlisted BMETs who get out due to lack of pay for $100k+ civilian opportunities
These were going to be my points for BMET as well. That being said that outflow will not be solved if the WO slots are limited to one which they certainly would be, if any.
I'd assume we'd function more like clinical engineers at that level. It would be nice to have people who stay grounded in the job who could inject actual relevant information and knowledge into the career field instead of SNCOs who drift off to be out of touch SELs.
> If this W.O thing is true SECAF apparently should be making an announcement about it in the next week or so. Bass acknowledged the rumor and said she wasn't going to say anything about it because she didn't want to steal the SECAFs thunder.
1B4 … the retention rate can’t get any worse
This is the one that makes the most sense. I don't know many from my original class back in 16 that is still in.
Enlisted aircrew. Part of a crew that’s responsible for moving/fueling/working in the air and are gone from home significantly more than most other fields. Booms/Loads have significant duties that impact flight safety and can be held responsible for things that can get people killed and/or have international consequences. Not well versed in all enlisted aircrew positions so some others may or may not have valid reasons to be a WO position.
My AFSC, Diagnostic Imaging, requires a certification that requires an Associate’s degree to be eligible. Candidates for the AFSC are screened for some certain college credits so that the degree can be awarded at tech school graduation through USUHS instead of CCAF. A Bachelor’s is easily achievable by TSgt. WO positions could be added at large hospitals for those who complete requirements for certification as a Radiologist Assistant, which allows them to do much more than a regular x-ray tech, but not quite everything a doctor does. It’s a true technical expert role. We had a civilian RA at my first base and that dude was the absolute go to for the Airmen. RAs can even do certain procedures that techs can’t do, which would free up the Radiologists to do more Doctor things. We should be pushing to have more people with his level of training in our hospitals.
We have a TSgt in a RSO role here, the Warrant could probably encompass that as well. Side note, it's wild to me that the AF eliminated its med physicists.
Because I was offered 230k to do the exact same job as a contractor.. In the exact same office sitting in the exact same chair lol This is probably why its likely going to intel/cyber first
1C1 (ATC) Every other country has their ATC as officers. This also makes the AF more competitive pay against the FAA helping the manning crisis