U.S. Air Force aeronautical rating
USAF aeronautical badges, commonly referred to as "wings" from their shape and their historical legacy, are awarded by the Air Force in recognition of degrees of achievement and experience.
Since the later 1950s, highly trained enlisted personnel, along with officers whose duties do not include flying, are recognized by the awarding of Air Force Occupational Badges.
Officers placed on permanent DNIF status are either cross-trained into another career field, or separated from the Air Force, depending on the severity of their medical condition.
Provided further, that any officer attached to the aviation section of the signal corps for any military duty requiring him to make regular and frequent flights shall receive an increase of 25 per centum of the pay of his grade and length of service under his commission.
[7] Before that time most pilots of the Aeronautical Division, Signal Corps soloed by the "short hop method" (also known as "grass-cutting"), in which student pilots, flying alone, learned to handle airplane controls on the ground, taxied in further practice until just short of takeoff speeds, and finally took off to a height of just ten feet, gradually working up to higher altitudes and turns.
Concurrently, two pilots (future General of the Air Force Henry H. Arnold and Thomas DeWitt Milling) were instructed by the Wright Brothers and certified by the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI) in July 1911.
To establish formal standards of certification, the Army created the Military Aviator rating and published requirements on 20 April 1912.
39, dated 27 May 1913, certified 24 officers including Arnold as "qualified", and authorized issuance of a certificate and badge.
A number of designs for the badge were considered before the War Department chose that of an eagle holding Signal Corps flags in its talons, suspended from a bar embossed with "Military Aviator", and had the dies manufactured.
A group of 14 aviators still detailed to the Signal Corps was recommended on 29 September 1913 to receive the badge, and the two gold proofs were issued 16 October 1913, to Captain Charles DeF.
Rated lieutenants who flew "regularly and frequently" were given the temporary rank, pay, and allowances of the next higher grade.
[13][15] After the creation by executive order in 1918 of the Army Air Service, a standard wings-and-shield design for the rating badge, still in use today, was created by sculptor Herbert S. Adams of the United States Commission of Fine Arts and approved on 25 January 1919.
[17][n 11] In 1920, when the Air Service was made a statutory arm of the line, the National Defense Act of 1920 also ended the differentials in flight pay and standardized it at 50%.
However, the latter requirement was so utterly impractical it was circumvented by the Air Corps with the tacit approval of the War Department.
Those remaining as enlisted men in the Regular Army held reserve officer commissions in the event of war.
Seven years of military flying experience and 2,000 logged hours qualified a pilot as an "airplane commander" in the GHQAF.
: these three ratings were typically awarded to soldiers on the basis of prior civilian flying experience, with a higher age limit and relaxed medical requirements for entry vs. the normal Pilot training pipeline; their duty assignments were limited in scope), and enlisted Aircrew ratings.
This title change was intended to place the CSO more in line with their Naval Flight Officer (NFO) counterparts of the U.S. Navy and U.S. Marine Corps, especially since the latter have historically enjoyed more robust operational flying command and major command opportunities, to include promotion to 3-star and 4-star rank.
The rating was discontinued in 1920, however, and flight surgeons as a military profession were neglected by the headquarters of the successive Army air arms until late in 1939.
[27][28] In July 1940, the recommendations of a board of flight surgeons appointed by Gen. Arnold were adopted, standardizing ratings requirements as:
The purpose of pilot-physicians is to provide "integrated operational and aerospace medicine guidance" in the research, development, testing, and evaluation of Air Force systems and missions to realize the greatest effectiveness and cost savings.
On 21 April 2011 the Pilot-Physician Program (PPP) was completely revised to make "the most of the special resources of Air Force officers who are simultaneously qualified both as pilots and flight surgeons," with a senior pilot-physician selected by the Air Force Surgeon General to be Program Director, and assignment of designated command, staff, research, training, and education billets as well as duty in operational units.
