U.S. Naval Air Training and Operational Excellence

As a patient of Dr. Coselli's, I underwent a lower aortic graft procedure in September of 2012 to correct an aneurysm. As a result, I understand and appreciate the sacrifices and commitment that cardiovascular surgery requires to study, to become certified, and then to practice your art and science. I have experienced firsthand how that sacrifice, commitment, and tremendous skill make huge differences in people's lives. Dr. Coselli and his incredible team not only prolonged my life but they restored my quality of life. That is as good as it gets, and I do not know of any other profession that has the life-changing impact that you all do, each and every day.

Today, I am going to talk about another profession that has a mission, provides a service, and has specific skill-set requirements that are acquired via sacrifice, commitment, and hard work. This profession helps enable the freedom we all enjoy and is our Navy—specifically, its aviation component called Naval Aviation—and the men and women who make it work (Fig. 1). I'm also going to relate some similarities between Naval Aviation and what you all do, and to highlight a few practices that have dramatically improved mission execution and safety performance.

Fig. 1 The author after a flight in this U.S. Navy F/A-18+ Hornet aircraft of Strike Fighter Squadron 204 at Marine Corps Air Station, Miramar, California (July 2009).

Our Navy was established by the First Continental Congress in 1775 to influence nations and coalitions and to ensure our ability to have free and unfettered trade via the seas. The same reasons for having a Navy still exist today. Our nation's and the world's economies depend on free trade, and 90% of all trade travels by sea. In addition, we need the ability to positively influence events around the world in a timely fashion, and a forward-deployed Navy is an effective way to accomplish this.

Naval Aviation complements and strengthens the Navy's ability to perform its mission by expanding its situational awareness and its ability to influence and shape events. Naval Aviation has advanced dramatically over the years through a steady progression of improvements, evolving to high-speed, long-range, manned and unmanned aircraft with state-of-the-art digital communications, linked sensors, and precision weapons. What has remained constant throughout is the quality and dedication of the professionals that make up the Navy and Naval Aviation. Our Navy has the third largest air force in the Free World, and it possesses the same high-end capabilities and mission sets as the United States Air Force, the difference being that Naval Aviation operates from the sea.

The centerpiece and hallmark of Naval Aviation is the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier. These capital ships with their embarked air wings, made up of specialized multi-mission aircraft, give our nation unmatched capabilities, flexibility, and an array of response options with which to influence world events. Naval Aviation, like medicine, is extraordinarily complicated and requires an enormous commitment, not only in material assets but in individuals who need highly specialized training. The time requirements to gain and maintain proficiency in Naval Aviation skill sets are lengthy and might seem familiar to those of you in the medical world.

Naval Aviation, which includes carrier operations, is extremely demanding, completely unforgiving, and requires the highest state of training and proficiency. Flight school has a 25% attrition rate and takes 2 years to complete. Pilots then spend another year learning to fly a fleet aircraft, before going to a fleet Navy squadron. It takes yet another year of training in a fleet squadron before a pilot is qualified to perform real-world mission sets in a supporting role. Then it takes still another year of training to be qualified to lead real-world mission sets. After an initial fleet tour, Naval Aviators become instructors and teach the next generation, and this flow is crucial to Naval Aviation's ability to sustain itself by meeting new pilot production requirements.

At the end of flight school, Naval Aviators incur an additional 8-year commitment before they have their first option to leave the Navy. It's much like going into medical school with the intent to specialize. This is asking quite a lot from someone who is only 23 or 24 years old. Naval Aviation—like medicine, and especially like surgery—is also a team effort. Pilots can't do their job without a multitude of other people ensuring that aircraft, aircraft systems, weapons, and all the other systems and support operations on aircraft carriers or shore bases are properly maintained and function as designed. A lot of this work is very physical, and most of it has life-or-death consequences if it isn't performed correctly.

Operational mission-set complexity, along with aircraft complexity and performance, has increased dramatically over the years. For example, in World War II it often took hundreds of aircraft to achieve the desired effect in a given target area. Now, advances in aircraft and weapons systems have decreased aircraft requirements to the point where one F/A-18 Super Hornet can achieve the desired effects on multiple such targets.

Naval Aviation has also invested in human performance-improvement initiatives to go hand-in-hand with aircraft and weapon systems improvements. An example of this is Naval Aviation's use of critical self, peer, and group assessment in an open and transparent environment, as one of its most important teaching tools. Pilots also routinely train in simulators or on instrumented ranges with real and virtual scored weapons and dedicated adversaries. All aircraft sensors and communications are recorded and debriefed, and at sea every landing is graded, videotaped, and formally debriefed. It typically takes twice as long to debrief as the briefing and the flight consume in combination, but this is performed in order to achieve the greatest possible benefit from every single flight.

Hand-in-hand with operational performance is safety performance. Safety performance is measured in mishaps per 100,000 flight hours and has gone from more than 50 mishaps per 100,000 flight hours in the early 1960s to less than 0.5 today, via a combination of procedure, equipment, and process improvements; training innovations; mentoring; and critical self, peer, and group assessment. The most recent innovation has been the incorporation of Operational Excellence Principles (Table I). Applying these simple steps and this mindset dramatically cuts down on error and unintended consequences.

TABLE I. Principles of Operational Excellence in Naval Aviation

Finally, Naval Aviation is fun, exciting, and rewarding, and I give it my highest possible recommendation to anyone looking for the ultimate combination of a rewarding challenge and adventure.