New Air Force Combat Systems Officer Course opens at Navy base

  • Published
  • By Capt. John Severns
  • Air Education and Training Command Public Affairs
PENSACOLA NAVAL AIR STATION, Fla. (AFNS) --  Air Force aviator training took a step into the 21st century May 5, when the inaugural class of Combat Systems Officer students began training here with the 479th Flying Training Group.

As they sat down in classes and began a new year-long training program, the CSO students became part of a fundamental transformation of Air Force training that started in 2002, when then Chief of Staff Gen. John P. Jumper ordered a re-design of Air Force navigator training.

"With the CSO, we are taking the best of three programs: navigator, electronic warfare, and weapon systems officer, and combining them into a single training pipeline that will produce skilled, effective aviators able to meet the needs of combatant commanders," said Col. Richard Murphy, the 12th Flying Training Wing commander, at Randolph Air Force Base, Texas.

The CSO students being trained at Pensacola are part of a new generation of aviators as was envisioned by General Jumper nearly eight years ago. Rather than specializing as navigators, weapon systems officers or electronic warfare officers, CSOs will be trained in a common set of core skills and will be responsible for a high degree of airmanship to include advanced air operations, electromagnetic spectrum exploitation and aircraft weapon systems employment, said Lt. Col. Jason Werchan, the 479th FTG deputy commander.

After graduating, CSOs will often serve as mission commanders, working with the aircraft commander to maintain situational awareness of their environment and successfully complete their mission, whether they find themselves flying on a fighter, bomber, special ops, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, or mobility platform.

The common skills gained at the new training will help prepare CSOs to fill any of the roles that were once filled by navigators, WSO or EWOs.

The training course that the new CSO students will attend includes some major changes, one of which is a significant increase in hands-on flying, Colonel Murphy said.

"The CSO of the future will hand-fly the aircraft during training on certain profiles," the Colonel said. With increased airmanship. They will know how to react at critical phases of flight to any kind of change in the environment or new developments in the mission.

"The ultimate goal is to create a more situationally aware CSO," Colonel Murphy said.

The CSO course at Pensacola will include 38 sorties in T-6 Texan II and modified T-1A Jayhawk trainers. These T-1 aircraft are uniquely modified platforms that are tailored to meet the specific multicrew training requirements of the CSO mission.

The T-6 training will focus on crew resource management, aircraft handling, aerobatics, low-level navigation and instruments. After completing that phase, students will move on to training in theT-1, where they will incorporate electronic warfare skills, advanced navigation, and air to air intercepts into actual aircraft training missions.

For training on the ground, CSO students will conduct 40 missions in T25 advanced navigation/electronic warfare simulators. These simulators are able to replicate the unique operational capabilities of aircraft across the service that a CSO might someday fly.

The 479th FTG became the 12th FTW's newest group in October, when it started operations in Florida as part of the 2005 Base Realignment and Closure Committee directive to relocate Air Force navigator training from Randolph AFB to NAS Pensacola, where the Navy conducts its Naval Flight Officer training. With the stand-up of the new group, nearly 35 percent of the 12th FTW is now located in Florida to include over 120 civil service maintainers.

"With so much of our wing now operating at a geographically separated location, communication and leadership are more important than ever," Colonel Murphy said. "We want our students to know, wherever they may be going through training, that they are still part of the 12th Flying Training Wing."