Air University Review, January-February 1978
*Prejudiced Pilots' Protective Association
As a wasp, field grade pilot, r grow weary of being a member of the tiniest of all the minorities and the one that is the target of all the rest--the one that is the cause of all our troubles from Antinavigatorism to Zero Defects shortfalls. Will I never hear a word in our defense? Is it really possible that all of our decisions arise from prejudice? Is it really possible that the pilot force is merely a collection of trained apes with no redeeming qualities of intellect and taste? With all the fanfare about the ladies entering the academies, will not one of us dare mention that their ratio among the maintenance troops is quietly being reduced-because of a fact that was obvious from the start: their physical strength is not equal to that of the male crew chiefs?
I know that views like that are most illiberal and go against the "wave of the future," but does not the rational approach suggest that some, perhaps only a very few, of the old ideas are sound? History is an amalgam of change and continuity. Some of the ideas that we have acquired through trial and error are bound to remain valid.
Through the millennia, the male has been more assertive, stronger physically, and has been the hunter; since time immemorial, the female, possessing a superior grasp of psychology and a more delicate, has been charged with the most important of all tasks: the physical and moral rearing of our young. These generalizations are not even limited to Homo sapiens but apply as well to the greater part of the animal kingdom. He who would deny them denies the most fundamental cornerstones of our civilization. Perhaps it is not too much to suggest, incidentally, that there is some connection between our departure from the traditional roles and the rising crime rate, drug abuse, and what some would describe as an ever-worsening lack of will on the part of the American people as a whole. If one of the so-called prejudices of the "male chauvinist pigs"-that the women of the maintenance force are not as physically strong as the men--is true, is it possible that some, or at least one, of the "prejudices" of the PPPA has some basis in fact? At the risk of appearing to be a hopeless reactionary, I should like to go against the "wave of the future" and explore that possibility.
*Prejudiced Pilots’ Protective Association
As this article was written in part to accompany Major Michael Richardson's "Navigators in Command--A Naval Perspective," the first thing that needs to be said is that the Navy is not the Air Force. One of the principal reasons that naval aviation was not given to the Air Force in 1947 was that flyers could not be expected to understand the sea and naval warfare. Naval aviation is auxiliary to the surface forces. Army aviation is auxiliary to the ground forces. Marine Corps aviation is subordinate to the marine ground combat forces. It is absolutely central to the theory of Billy Mitchell that air power must he a striking arm in its own right, that it is an independent force that can and should fight battles with the enemy which are not associated with the conflict on the ground--not directly, at least. Thus, Air Force aviation is not, and should not be, auxiliary to any other kind of military force.
The corollaries to this are:
(1) A naval officer must be a specialist in naval warfare first and an aviator only in an incidental way and only insofar as aviation will enhance his ability to fight a war on the sea.
(2) An Army officer must be an expert in warfare on the ground and an aviator in only an incidental way--only in a way that helps him prosecute the battle on the ground. Many Army aviators have come to grief, they say, with promotion boards for failing to understand this: they have spent too much time with airplanes and too little with the infantry.
(3) The essence of Air Force generalship is war in the air. Thus3 being an aviator is not incidental to command in the Air Force; it is absolutely vital. Nonflyers have risen to the top spot in the Navy, but nonline officers have not--and justifiably so. The essence of command in the Navy is the understanding of seamanship and warfare at sea. Some Army chiefs of staff have been aviators, but that is not a necessary qualification. No recent Army chief of staff has come from other than the combat arms--and this is justifiable since the essence of the profession is war on land. Thus, I maintain that it would make no more sense to put a nonflyer in charge of the Air Force than it would to make a quartermaster the Chief of Staff of the Army or a member of the Navy's. Civil Engineering Corps CNO. What is good for the Navy, therefore, is not necessarily good for the Air Force.
Of course, a navigator is a flyer, and I donor propose that he be denied the chance to command the Air Force. I propose only to try to elevate the opinions that our navigators hold on the logic and fair-mindedness of their brother officers-who- happen to be pilots. I will attempt to do this by convincing them that some of their own views are but prejudices and that some of the so-called "prejudices" of the PPPA may be based on fact.
There were some logical bases in the old system. It all grew out of the storms of the twenties when the air arm was dominated by artillery officers and the like. The original passage of the law that eliminated such officers from the command of flying units was a vital step on the road to the independent Air Force and to the understanding that air power can be used alone to achieve some of the ends of national policy. Presumably no navigator will argue with the sentiments behind the initial passage of the law. The rub is that the navigator rating did not exist at the time. The law was not intended to discriminate against navigators. only against nonflyers.
The navigator rating was not created until World War II was upon us. When I entered navigator school, a common lament among my colleagues was that there were no navigator generals. True. This was taken to be proof positive that institutional prejudice condemned us forever to second-class citizenship. Untrue. At the time, and for quite a while afterward, there was not a navigator in the Air Force with enough time in the service to seriously aspire to the rank of general, no matter how far below-the-zone. The present Chief of Staff, General David C. Jones, is the first ever to start his commissioned service after the creation of the navigator rating. Thus, it is not at all remarkable that no navigator has been Chief of Staff since none has had the length of service to be competitive.
Now on to a more touchy subject. Many, if not all, of our navigators believe that the pilot "prejudice" holds that their career area is not as well qualified for command as are the pilots. Is it possible that, when considered as a group (on the average), that the prejudice" has some basis in fact? Dare we say it? The Air Force believes in the "whole man" concept-- no matter that few of us in either group approach that ideal. Our ideal "whole man" possesses a full measure of three qualities; morality, intellect, and health and physical condition.
Morality is a very dangerous subject, and one would be well advised to stay away from it at cocktail parties. But here it is vital. For the last part, there is no moral difference between navigators and pilots. Aggressiveness, however, is a moral quality and one that is certainly to desired in a commander. At the outset of navigator training, there was a portion of every group that was physically eligible or later became eligible, for pilot training. Would it be valid to suggest, on the average, that the most aggressive of them did rest until they gained admission to pilot school? Further, one considerable prejudice of navigator group is that all pilots are wholly prejudiced against navigators. This has given many of the observers a feeling of second-class citizenship, and perhaps it is not too much to assume that many of the most aggressive physically disqualified observers have refused to live with that feeling and have left the service. Can it be said, then, that these things have tended to lower the average aggressiveness of the remaining group? Maybe the difference between the two groups is microscopic, but since the reverse argument on the part of the navigators cannot be logically maintained, perhaps there is some factual basis to the PPPA's prejudice.
A less dangerous subject is the discussion of the intellectual aspects of the problem. One World War II legend had to do with the classification process for flying schools:
I. Gregarious, athletic, and aggressive persons…..To pilot school
II. Intellectual (anyone caught reading a book)…..To navigator school
III. Reclusive, no redeeming social qualities…..Bombardiers
There can be no doubt that navigation is more of an intellectual challenge than is driving an airplane. Moreover, Major Richardson’s point that many successful navigators have made their marks outside their rated career field--very often in sophisticated aspects of engineering and missilery--is valid. These things have probably contributed to the observers' prejudice to the effect that pilots are dumb. Let’s us take a closer look at it.
Dr. Monte D. Wright's Most Probable Position is a splendid work that should be known to every navigator.* His research proves beyond question that almost all of the fundamentals of aerial navigation were well established before World War II. They were actually established, then, before the navigator rating was invented. Established by whom? In Mission with LeMay the general tells us how in the thirties he established a long-range navigation school in Hawaii and how he served as the navigator of the force of the B-l7s that intercepted the Rex 700 miles at sea. In short, navigation is an essential part of the pilot rating from the outset. But can the reverse argument he made? Of course, many navigators are also aeronautical engineers, but, is a knowledge of aeronautics common to all navigators? There is no question that the observer force has as good or better grasp of avionics than do the drivers, but can the same be said about propulsion? How many of our navigators understand engines and the associated maintenance problems? Is it fair to say that observers tend to he more specialized than pilots? The very term "general" suggests that the commander should be a generalist not a specialist. On the average, then, perhaps it is fair to maintain that neither specialty group has reached an intellectual level superior to that of the other. Yet there is some slight tendency for navigators to acquire specialized knowledge as compared to more generalized learning on the part of pilots.
Dr. Wright, now NASA Historian, was himself an Air Force navigator*
Any number of authorities from Marshal de Saxe onward have cited health and good physical condition as an important quality for commanders. Who can deny it? One of the excuses that Napoleon used for his defeat at Waterloo was that he was too ill to provide the kind of leadership he had used at Austerlitz and at all the other great battlefields. Good physical condition is important not only for the sake of strength and endurance but also because the commander's condition and even athletic prowess have an impact on the psychology of the troops. How do the two groups stack up in this regard?
Many from the observer group were originally disqualified from pilot school because of physical or health defects. None of the pilots were so disqualified from navigation training. That most common defect, less-than-perfect eyesight, is not an earthshaking handicap for a commander. But, all the same, it could hardly be argued that any physical defect enhances an individual's ability to command. A minor point, no doubt.
Hardly more serious is the fact that a considerable minority of the navigators were eliminated from pilot training before going to observer school; none of the pilots was eliminated from navigator training. Usually, this elimination was caused by physical things: a want of coordination or an inability to judge relative motion. Of course, that is no disgrace--some great athletes have "washed out" of pilot school--but it does not improve one's qualification for command. Sometimes, elimination is caused by factors of a moral nature: the inability to retain one's composure under pressure or, on rare occasions, the lack of determination to see a difficult task through to the finish. Is it too much to say that, on the average, navigators are not quite as able as pilots in the physical sense?
Over the years, the attrition rate-especially the forced attrition rate-of the pilot school has been substantial; that of the navigator training programs has been minimal. If we grant credibility to the evaluation programs of the Air Training Command, can this have had any other effect than to cause the average capability of the pilot group to be a bit higher than that of the navigators? In short, is the "prejudice" really all prejudice, or is it based on fact to some extent?
It is to he noted that the above treatment has emphasized the words "on the average." Certainly, no reasonable man would argue against the idea that the above average navigator should he given the chance to prove himself as a commander--even at the cost of denying that chance to another highly competent man-for command slots do not grow on trees. But do we really want to go so far as Major Richardson and Captain Jefferies (September-October 1974, Air University Review) suggest? Do we really want to reserve slots for navigators only? Do we want to make a man a commander because he is a competent leader or because he is a navigator?
Some educational institutions have been struggling with a similar problem. Because of Health, Education, and Welfare Department regulations, they were forced to maintain a certain proportion of the faculty composed of blacks and another composed of females. The result sometimes was that the best qualified teacher did not get the job because a competitor was female or black.
If you would not have me deny you command because you are a navigator, then you could hardly expect me to appoint you to command because you are a navigator--that would be reverse discrimination just as bad as the original. Your pride should demand that the decision be made based on merit alone--if that is possible. So let us appoint the above average leaders among our navigators to command positions--be they black, or female, or whatever. As for the remainder, now that Congress and the Air Force have taken a giant step toward the satisfaction of your claims, perhaps you should, in turn, ask yourselves some hard questions--some questions not designed to produce answers that would prove that the rest of the world is prejudiced and that navigators, alone being privy to the truth, must inherit the earth--all of it.
Among these questions might be:
Am I myself so prejudiced as to deny every pilot the quality of being able to think logically?
Am I as aggressive as I might be? Have I troubled myself to learn anything about the engines so that I can understand and help with maintenance problems? Have I ever been guilty of taking a "nit-picking" approach to flying and advised the pilot against flying a difficult--but possible--mission? Am I a positive thinker? Do I like to fly? Do I ever take the establishment side of a discussion? Do I like the Air Force? Do I show the same enthusiasm for pilot proficiency training as I do for night celestial? Have I helped the pilot and the squadron commander with their leadership problems regarding the enlisted crew members?
Do I take care of myself physically? Are Air Force officers fatter than those in the Army? Am I one of the fat ones? Have I made a serious effort to quit smoking? Are my excuses valid--really valid? Do I schedule my physicals before I am notified to do so by CBPO? Is my shot record up to date at this moment?
What was the last book I read? When was the last time I read a book on strategy? When was the last time I read a serious book of any kind? Do I subscribe to any periodicals on military and international affairs?
Do I really know what my profession is all about, or am I just another specialist, competent for day-to-day navigation but certainly not fit to hold the fate of nations in my hands?
One conclusion might be that it is the function of a devil’s advocate to deliberately exaggerate the case--to exaggerate so as to cause his readers to ask themselves, painful questions. Another conclusion is that indeed the pilot force is prejudiced. So is the navigator group and every other group that exists. Show me the man who says he is not prejudiced, and I will show you the most hopeless bigot of all. Honesty demands that the observers of the Air Force grant that not all pilots are prejudiced against navigators, and that not all of their attitudes on the subject are prejudices--some might well be factual. One step in that direction might be that the observers cease to use terms like "Pilots’ Protective Association"--that kind of term does nothing for the cause. Again, now that the Congress has gone part way toward the satisfaction of the grievances of the navigators, maybe the time has come for some introspection. Perhaps it is time to take a hard look to discover which of the pilots’ clichés are based on prejudice and which are based on fact-and to eliminate the former through demonstrated performance, and the latter by the same method.
DRM
Disclaimer
The conclusions and opinions expressed in this document are those of the author cultivated in the freedom of expression, academic environment of Air University. They do not reflect the official position of the U.S. Government, Department of Defense, the United States Air Force or the Air University.