READY ROOM
THE STORY BEHIND THE US NAVY HEADLINES
THE RETIREMENT OF the last US Marine Corps EA-6B Prowler electronic attack aircraft in May marked a milestone in the history of Marine Corps aviation, but it also had significant impact of a less obvious nature — the fading duty of the naval flight officer (NFO). The USMC is now planning to remove this role — essentially now only present in Weapon Systems Operators (WSO) in the back seats of F/A-18D Hornets.
The Marine Corps has been drawing down its NFO community for several years with two of its six VMFA(AW) all-weather fighter-attack squadrons and all four tactical electronic warfare squadrons (VMAQs) having bowed out. The EA-6Bs were crewed by a pilot and three NFOs — known as electronic countermeasures officers (ECMOs). The USMC’s NFO community is relatively small compared with that of the US Navy and now the Marine Corps is planning to operate its F/A-18Ds essentially as single-seaters or with two pilots, a nod to the future of marine tactical aviation, which is completely F-35-oriented. It is now mixing F/A-18Ds into squadrons with single-seat Hornets, a move that will eventually result in the extinction of the NFO in the USMC.
NFO community in the USMC
