Skip to main content
HonestMOS
●InvestigationsCongress made VA disability claims free to file. An entire industry charges veterans anyway — and nobody can stop them.→
←Back to 150A Air Traffic and Air Space Management Technician — overview, pay, training, civilian translation, reviews
150AWO1-CW2

Air Traffic and Air Space Management Technician

WO1 to CW2 (Junior Warrant) · Army

WO1–CW2CW3–CW5
HEADS UP

You came out of the tower cab knowing every phraseology call cold — now you are the one who writes the standard the controllers are tested against, signs the certification appointments their careers depend on, and advises the CAB S-3 on the airspace plan that the Black Hawks fly inside. The warrant officer designation is the gate; the credibility to fill the 150A seat technically and professionally is what the next three years are actually about.

The Honest MOS Read
The 150A Warrant Officer One or Chief Warrant Officer Two is the facility chief — the person who owns the ATC standard, the airspace coordination file, and the technical decisions the facility NCOs cannot make alone. You came here from the enlisted ranks as a 15Q (Air Traffic Control Operator), and before that you sat second-position in a tower cab on a bad-weather day wondering if this warrant officer thing was worth the WOCS application paperwork. Now you are the one who runs the board. The pipeline: Warrant Officer Candidate School (WOCS) at Fort Novosel — roughly six weeks under the 1st Battalion / 145th Aviation Regiment's Warrant Officer Career College. WOCS is a leadership-professionalism course, not a technical course; you will not be talking ATC for six weeks, you will be learning how the Army expects an officer to think and behave. Then the Warrant Officer Basic Course (WOBC) for the Aviation warrant community. Then the ATC and Airspace Management Technician Course, back at Fort Novosel, which is the technical capstone — airspace management doctrine, ARMS review preparation, facility administration, the LOA framework at the operational level, the AR 95-2 technical standards that govern Army ATC facility operations. The combination of WOCS + WOBC + the Technician Course typically runs several months. When you pin WO1 and arrive at your first unit, you are already the facility chief on paper. The first six months are about becoming one in fact. Your day-to-day as a WO1 or CW2 is anchored by three responsibilities. First, the facility technical standard: you own the facility directive, the Letters of Agreement with adjacent FAA TRACONs, Centers, and military facilities, the position-certification program, and the Stan/Eval board that actually certifies controllers onto positions. The 15Q SSG runs the watches; you set the standard the watch is measured against. Second, airspace management: you are the aviation battalion's airspace coordination technician — the person who maintains the unit's MOA and restricted-area schedule, coordinates airspace deconfliction requests through the Division or Corps G-3 Air cell, and interfaces with the FAA on special-use airspace activations and NOTAM amendments. Third, the officer duties: you write OER supporting bullets for the facility NCOs, you sit officer call, you manage property hand-receipt accountability for a cab full of communications and navigation equipment that costs several million dollars and belongs to you by signature. The adjustment the 15Q enlisted community warned you about is real. As an E-6 tower chief, you were the one running the floor. As a WO1 150A, you run the standard and the airspace file — and for the first several months, the SSG who has been the tower chief longer than you have been a warrant officer knows the daily-operations side better than you do. The right move is to let him run it and focus on learning the administrative and technical architecture that he cannot fix: the LOA revalidation cycle, the ARMS pre-assessment process, the facility directive currency, the Stan/Eval documentation standard. That is the 150A value-add. Controllers who become warrant officers and then try to out-NCO the facility NCO lose the formation's respect inside a year. The civilian bridge from the 150A is more complex than the bridge from 15Q enlisted. Your Army-trained controllers are targeting the FAA prior-military hiring pipeline; you are the warrant officer managing a facility, which is closer to an FAA facility manager or an aviation safety consultant role than to an FAA controller position. Build the credential documentation now: your AR 95-2 facility-chief designation letters, your LOA history, your ARMS review record, the Stan/Eval board records you can reference. Post-service options include FAA Terminal Operations management, aviation safety consulting, airport authority technical roles, and defense-contractor ATC system program management. The technical credibility in the Army ATC world translates — but the translation requires documentation.
Career Arc
  • 01WOCS selection (in-service 15Q packet, typically SSG-SFC level; competitive board at HRC Aviation Branch).
  • 02WOCS at Fort Novosel (~6 weeks, 1-145 AVN / WOCC) — leadership and officership phase.
  • 03WOBC — Aviation Warrant Officer Basic Course.
  • 04ATC and Airspace Management Technician Course, Fort Novosel — technical capstone.
  • 05First unit: facility chief or co-chief with a CW3, Army ATC facility at a CONUS or OCONUS installation.
  • 06WO1 to CW2 at 2 years TIG; CW3 board opens at 5 years TIG at CW2.
  • 07First OER cycle — build the profile: facility outcomes, airspace management results, Stan/Eval currency, ARMS record.
Common Screwups
  • ×DUI / Article 15 / drug pop — terminal for the warrant officer designation and for any future FAA-adjacent career. The Class III Aviation Medical Certificate that the ATC community relies on is sensitive to substance findings in your record.
  • ×Signing a position-certification appointment under informal or social pressure from a senior NCO. Your name is on the appointment; the operational error from an under-qualified controller becomes an ARMS finding with your designation on it.
  • ×Hiding a deal (operational error) or a near-miss from the airfield commander or the CAB safety officer to 'handle it internally.' ATC safety reporting is a federal obligation; cover-up is worse than the event, and the FAA voice-tape review is independent of what you tell the chain.
  • ×Letting personal relationships from the 15Q enlisted days shape how you run the facility standard. The NCO who was your buddy in the tower cab is now the NCO you are evaluating — and the OER you write for him goes to the centralized board that decides his career.
  • ×Failing to maintain a credible OER paper trail on your facility NCOs. The warrant officer who gives everyone 'among the best' and never documents a hard performance conversation is building an NCOER record that the centralized board ignores — and so is his own record.

A Day in the Life

  • 0530-0630PT with the unit — warrant officers are expected to lead PT or participate at the company level; ATC facilities run on 24-hour watches so PT is synchronized to the day-shift formation.
  • 0630-0700Shower, dress, review the facility night shift's watch log before the day shift brief — any deals, equipment issues, or coordination events from overnight need to be on your radar before the 0700 walk-around.
  • 0700-0730Facility walk-down: check strip/IDS-4 display configuration, check equipment status board, verify the ATIS is current with the morning weather, confirm watch supervisor is briefed on any open items from the night log.
  • 0730-0900Administrative block: facility directive review or amendment drafting; LOA tracking spreadsheet update; position-certification roster review (who is up for no-notice evaluation this month).
  • 0900-1000S-3 air coordination cell interface: verify today's MOA schedule is activated per the coordination, confirm any special-use airspace requests from the battalion's flight schedule, check for new NOTAM inputs needed.
  • 1000-1100Stan/Eval board work or ARMS pre-assessment: rotate through facility positions with no-notice evaluation schedule; or, if ARMS prep is underway, walk through checklist items with the facility SSG and document findings.
  • 1100-1200OER support work: review and update running input notes on facility NCOs; draft counseling bullets for any significant events from the last week; review the NCOER support forms the NCOs submitted.
  • 1200-1300Lunch — warrant officers typically eat separately from the platoon formation in garrison; use the block for a 20-minute technical read (LOA revalidation package in progress, or the AR 95-2 section you are applying to a current facility question).
  • 1300-1430Coordination calls with adjacent FAA TRACON, ARTCC, or neighboring Army ATC facility: LOA amendment coordination, upcoming exercise airspace requests, scheduled restricted-area activation confirmation.
  • 1430-1600Facility administrative close-out: sign any completed position-certification documentation; review and sign watch logs from the day shift; verify tomorrow's controller schedule is posted and the watch supervisor is briefed.
  • 1600-1700Property accountability block: sub-hand-receipt reconciliation on facility comms/nav equipment; coordinate with the ATC equipment NCO on any pending maintenance actions or equipment status changes for the readiness slide.
  • 1700-1800On a CTC rotation or during a major exercise: this block is a brief to the CAB S-3 on ATC and airspace status; in garrison it is the transition to personal time unless the CAB commander has a combined-arms readiness brief.
  • 1800-2200On a duty day: available for facility emergency coordination (equipment failure, unexpected IFR event, FAA coordination required after-hours). Otherwise: ATP 3-04.94 / JP 3-52 reading, DA PAM 600-3 review for CW3 board prep, or the warrant officer professional development program the senior 150A in the formation is running.

Weekly Cadence

Monday through Wednesday in a normal garrison week are dominated by the administrative and coordination responsibilities that run underneath the watch schedule. The facility NCOs own the watches; your day is split between the paperwork that nobody else can sign (certification appointments, LOA coordination letters, ARMS pre-assessment documentation) and the operational interface with the CAB S-3 and adjacent FAA facilities. The Monday morning formation brief from the facility SSG is the temperature check on what surfaced over the weekend — equipment issues, personnel issues, anything logged in the watch record. Thursday is typically the commander's training day at the unit level, which for a 150A means a professional-development block — warrant officer call if the formation runs one, or the doctrinal reading and LOA maintenance work that does not fit into a week of operational coordination. Friday in a garrison week is the administrative close-out: the weekly status brief to the airfield commander or CAB S-3, the property accountability spot-check, and the look-ahead at next week's flight schedule and any airspace activation requests that need to be in the system by Monday. When the unit is in a CTC rotation train-up, the week shifts: every Monday morning is a readiness review where you stand in front of the CAB commander with ATNAVICS readiness status, position-certification posture, and any LOA gaps that need to be resolved before the rotation. The train-up weeks are when the ARMS pre-assessment work gets tested — you want every major finding resolved before the unit deploys to the training area, because the ARMS team and the OC/T community share notes.

Key Skills — How to Drill Each

  1. 01
    Chair a facility Stan/Eval board — schedule, document, and adjudicate controller position certifications to AR 95-2 and ATP 3-04.94 standards.
    The Stan/Eval board is not a rubber-stamp. Build the schedule from the position-certification training plan the facility director writes: initial certifications on a documented phase timeline, annual no-notice check ride evaluations, position-currency tracking. Every certification appointment is a signed document with your 150A designation on it. Rehearse the board procedure once a quarter — pull a no-notice oral on a mid-certified controller and grade it honestly. When the ARMS team walks in and asks for the certification records, the answer is a binder, not a conversation.
  2. 02
    Maintain the facility directive and all active Letters of Agreement — review cycle, amendments, and coordination with adjacent FAA facilities.
    Set a recurring calendar review at the halfway point of every LOA's expiration window. Every LOA amendment requires written coordination with the adjacent facility, signatures on both sides, and a clear effective date — informal phone agreements are not amendments. The facility directive is a living document: when AR 95-2 publishes a revision or when the airfield's operating parameters change (new runway, new taxiway, frequency change), the directive needs an amendment with a new edition date. Keep a tracking log. The ARMS pre-assessment starts with this binder.
  3. 03
    Coordinate Restricted Area activations and MOA schedules through the Division or Corps G-3 Air cell and the appropriate ARTCC.
    Learn the activation lead times for your unit's assigned special-use airspace: FAA ARTCC typically requires a specific notification window (varies by facility and LOA; verify with your LOA), and the Division G-3 Air cell has its own internal planning cycle on top of that. Build a scheduling template that works backward from the first planned flight inside the MOA or R-area. Coordinate unplanned activations immediately — the NOTAM has to be on the system before the aircraft enters the airspace, not after.
  4. 04
    Defend the facility during an Aviation Resource Management Survey (ARMS) — preparation, documentation, and honest self-assessment.
    The ARMS is a checklist inspection driven by AR 95-2 and the Army Aviation ARMS Program procedures. Walk your own facility against the ARMS checklist six months before a scheduled survey and again at 90 days. Every major finding you catch on your own pre-assessment is a finding you fix before the team arrives. Prepare the readout package yourself: position-certification roster, LOA status matrix, facility directive edition and date, deal-log trend, ATNAVICS readiness status. Brief the airfield commander before the team briefs him.
  5. 05
    Brief the CAB commander and airfield commander on ATC and airspace status in language that translates to their operational picture.
    The commander does not need ATC jargon — he needs three things: are we legal, are we safe, is there anything he needs to decide. Build a standing status brief format that covers deal trend (direction matters, not just number), position-certification posture (fully certified vs. gap by position), ATNAVICS readiness (available / not available), LOA currency status (green/amber/red), and a single decision-slide for anything that requires his action. Five slides max. Run it monthly in garrison; weekly during a major exercise or CTC rotation train-up.
  6. 06
    Advise the 15Q NCO mentees on the 150A warrant officer packet — the technical record, the NCOER profile, and the honest selection-rate conversation.
    The 150A packet is a competitive Aviation Branch board. The selection criteria are not publicly published in detail, but the community's informal signal is consistent: a high-performing SSG or SFC with full facility certifications, clean NCOER profile, demonstrated airspace coordination experience, and command-level recommendation. Be honest with the soldier who asks you about it: the board is selective and the seat requires a genuine technical interest in airspace management, not just a desire to leave the NCO corps. Mentor the ones who have the aptitude; don't oversell the track to the ones who want the warrant bars more than the job.

Manuals & References — What Chapters Matter

  • FAA Order JO 7110.65 — Air Traffic Control
    This is the operational standard your facility is certified to operate under. At the facility-chief level, you are not looking up phraseology — you are adjudicating deviations from it. Chapter 2 (General) and Chapter 3 (Airport Traffic Control) are the sections an ARMS reviewer will ask you to cite chapter-and-verse on a controller's position-certification failure. Read the reissue notice annually; the FAA publishes changes through notice and each change carries an effective date.
  • AR 95-2 — Airfield, Heliport, and Heliport Operations
    The Army regulation that establishes ATC facility authority structures, designates the facility director/chief role, prescribes the ARMS review criteria, and governs position-certification standards. Chapter 4 covers ATC facility operations and certification requirements in detail. This is the document you carry to every conversation where someone is asking whether the facility is compliant.
  • ATP 3-04.94 — Army Air Traffic Services
    The Army doctrinal publication that overlays JO 7110.65 with the tactical and operational Army environment. The deployable ATC framework (ATNAVICS, mobile tower, Forward Operating Airfield ATC), the Stan/Eval program structure, and the airspace coordination interface with the G-3 Air all live in ATP 3-04.94. If AR 95-2 is the regulation, ATP 3-04.94 is the how-to.
  • AR 95-1 — Flight Regulations
    Governs Army aviation operations at the airfield level. The 150A warrant needs to understand how ATC authority and pilot-in-command authority interact — specifically the sections on controlled airspace operations, instrument meteorological conditions (IMC), and the ATC clearance requirement in Class D. The airfield commander will ask you, not the aviation battalion S-3, when the airspace-versus-pilot-authority question comes up in an accident investigation.
  • JP 3-52 — Joint Airspace Control
    The joint doctrine publication covering airspace control in a joint operational area. As a 150A warrant you will integrate with USAF and coalition ATC authorities during CTC rotations and deployments. JP 3-52 covers the Airspace Control Order (ACO) process, the roles of the JFACC and Army airspace manager, and the procedural separation framework between Army rotary-wing and USAF/coalition fixed-wing. Start reading it before your first joint exercise.
  • DA PAM 600-3 — Officer Professional Development (Warrant Officer chapter)
    The 150A career arc, competitive categories, and the progression criteria from WO1 through CW5 are described in the 150A section of DA PAM 600-3. Read it before your first OER cycle so you understand what the Aviation Branch is looking for in a CW2-to-CW3 profile — and so you can advise your 15Q NCO mentees on what the board actually reads.

Standards — How to Hit Each

  • WOBC and ATC and Airspace Management Technician Course complete — both required before you can function as the technical authority the 150A designation requires.
    The course is at Fort Novosel. Take notes. The sections on ARMS review preparation and the LOA framework are the ones that matter most in your first 12 months at a unit. Bring your facility's current LOAs with you if you already have an assignment slated — you can begin the revalidation timeline in your head before you arrive. The technical course is the warrant's credential that the facility NCOs do not have, and you will be tested on it in the first ARMS review of your career.
  • Facility director / chief designation letter — signed by the airfield commander per AR 95-2; working the position without the letter on file is an ARMS major finding.
    This paperwork sounds administrative but it is a legal requirement under AR 95-2. When you arrive at the unit, the first item on your in-processing checklist is the designation letter. If there is not one or if the previous 150A's letter is still on file with your name not on it, fix it in the first week. You cannot sign a controller's position-certification appointment as the facility chief if your own designation is not documented.
  • All facility position certifications current — no lapsed certifications, no controllers working positions beyond their certified scope.
    Build a tracking spreadsheet with every controller's name, every position they are certified on, the date of certification, and the currency-maintenance requirement. Review it weekly. A lapsed currency is not always a controller's fault — operational tempo and short-staffing cause currency gaps — but the gap is your responsibility to identify, document, and route through a formal requalification path. The facility that has gaps and cannot explain them is the facility that gets a major finding.
  • LOA review cycle current — all Letters of Agreement reviewed and renewed within the specified expiration window.
    Pull every LOA in the facility file and build a renewal calendar. Most LOAs specify a revalidation period (often every two years); some are perpetual until amended. For the ones with a specified window, start the renewal coordination at least 90 days before expiration — the adjacent facility has its own chain of coordination and approval, and a rushed LOA amendment creates signature risks. The ARMS reviewer will verify the LOA file against the facility directive on day one.
  • OER profile from the first KD assignment that the rater and senior rater can defend — bullets tied to measurable facility outcomes, not generic activity descriptions.
    Start tracking your own OER bullets from month one. Every outcome that can be quantified should be: deal rate trend (percentage reduction during your tenure), ARMS result (major findings vs. previous cycle), position-certification rate (percentage of controllers at full certification vs. below), ATNAVICS readiness (days fully mission capable vs. not). The OER that says 'managed ATC facility' gets read differently than the one that says 'led ARMS pre-assessment program, reducing major findings by X from previous cycle.' Build the record.

Technical Mistakes — Concrete Consequences

  • Signing a position-certification appointment for a controller who has not completed all required training phases.
    The appointment letter carries your 150A designation as the technical authority. An under-qualified controller's operational error — runway incursion, separation loss, NORDO mishandling — is investigated against the certification record; your signature on an incomplete certification is discoverable in the FAA voice-tape review and the Army aviation safety investigation, and the relief-for-cause memo lands on your OER.
  • Letting the facility directive go un-updated for more than two publication cycles after a regulatory or operational change.
    An expired or out-of-date facility directive is an ARMS major finding that is attributed to the facility chief by name. The brigade aviation safety office takes it to the CAB commander, and the OER bullet that follows is not the one you want. More operationally: controllers operating under an outdated directive may be operating under procedures that no longer match the current LOA or airfield configuration, which is an operational-error precursor.
  • Running an informal coordination with the FAA TRACON and treating the phone call as an LOA amendment.
    The FAA quality assurance review does not accept verbal coordination as a procedural basis. When the next operational event is traced back to the coordination, the investigation asks for the signed amendment; if there is not one, the Army facility is the one with the procedural deficiency. The FAA Regional Administrator's office gets involved and the airfield commander signs the response letter.
  • Delegating the ATNAVICS readiness tracking entirely to the ATC equipment NCO without technically supervising it.
    The AN/TPN-31 ATNAVICS is on the Army ATC readiness slide at the CAB level; when the CAB S-3 asks the 150A why the ATNAVICS is not available for the upcoming field problem, the answer 'I'll check with the NCO' is not the answer a warrant officer gives. The technical authority for ATC equipment readiness is the 150A's responsibility regardless of who maintains the equipment.
  • Going around the facility NCO chain to brief the airfield commander on a deal or a personnel issue directly.
    The 15Q NCOs run the watch — they have more daily-operations credibility than a new WO1 for a legitimate reason. The warrant officer who bypasses the tower chief SSG to brief the airfield commander directly loses the facility NCO's trust within a shift cycle, and in a small MOS where everyone knows everyone, that reputation follows the warrant to the next unit.

Career Decisions at This Rank

  • Stay in the ATC facility billet for a second tour vs. pursue an airspace management staff billet early.
    A second facility chief tour builds a deeper technical record and a second OER in a KD billet, which is valuable for the CW3 board. However, the warrants who pick up a Division G-3 Air or Corps airspace element billet as a CW2 develop the joint airspace management competency earlier, and the Aviation Branch values that diversity — the CW3 who has both a facility tour and a staff tour is the one who competes well. Talk to the senior CW4 or CW5 in your formation honestly about what the board is reading when your cohort comes up.
  • Pursue an institutional billet at Fort Novosel (DOTD / TRADOC cadre) at the CW2 level.
    Institutional billets at the Aviation Center of Excellence — course writer, technical instructor, ARMS program advisor — develop the doctrine and training competencies that CW4 and CW5 billets in the 150A community require. They are also a recognized career developer in the Aviation Branch's warrant officer development program. The downside is that you are not in an operational unit building the OER bullets from a deployed or CTC-rotation facility chief seat. Weigh the branch's stated developmental priorities (per DA PAM 600-3) against the OER competitive profile you are trying to build for CW3.
  • Begin building the post-service credential record now vs. waiting until the CW3 or CW4 window.
    The FAA prior-military hiring pipeline that your 15Q controllers are targeting is not the same pipeline a 150A facility chief enters — your post-service market is airport authority technical management, FAA Terminal Operations management, aviation safety consulting, and defense-contractor ATC program management. The credential you need to document now is the AR 95-2 designation-letter record, the ARMS review history, the LOA portfolio, and the Stan/Eval board record. These documents are not automatically preserved when you PCS — start a personnel file now and take it with you at every rotation.
  • Re-enlistment and ADSO vs. the civilian aviation market.
    The 150A ADSO runs through the WOBC completion; beyond that, retention is voluntary. The civilian ATC market for a warrant officer with facility-chief credentials and an airspace management background is narrower but higher-value than the FAA controller market your enlisted peers are targeting. FAA facility management jobs (Traffic Management Unit supervisor, Terminal Operations manager) and aviation safety consulting firms actively recruit senior Army ATC warrants — but the salary floors are well below a CW4's total compensation, and most of those roles want a demonstrated record at the CW3-CW4 level, not the CW2 level. Run the numbers against the current pay scale and bonus structure honestly before signing anything.

How the Seat Varies by Unit Type

  • Combat Aviation Brigade (CAB) — fixed-base Army airfield
    The most common first assignment for a WO1 150A. You are the facility chief of a tower or RAPCON at a CONUS or OCONUS Army Airfield serving a CAB — Fort Campbell, Fort Cavazos, Fort Stewart, Fort Lewis-McChord, Camp Humphreys, Wiesbaden, etc. The pace is high during NTC/JRTC rotation train-up cycles; garrison is manageable. The LOA with the adjacent FAA TRACON is your most complex ongoing coordination. The CAB S-3 is your primary operational interface. Your CW3 mentor in the battalion can see you every day.
  • Airfield Operations Battalion (AOB)
    If assigned to an AOB — the theater-level organization that owns Army ATC and airfield operations support across a ASCC or Theater Army — the scale is different. You may be supervising multiple facilities rather than running a single one, the airspace coordination is at a theater level instead of a CAB level, and the interface with USAF and coalition ATC authorities is a daily reality rather than an occasional coordination call. AOB billets at CW2 are uncommon; they are more typical at CW3 and above. If slated here as a WO1 or CW2, you are in a demanding environment with limited in-unit mentorship from senior 150As.
  • CONUS installation with joint FAA / Army co-located facility
    Some Army ATC facilities operate in close proximity to FAA TRACONs or are co-located with joint civilian-military facilities. The LOA complexity is higher, the coordination with the FAA is daily, and the warrant officer's credibility with civilian ATC professionals is tested early. The upside: you develop the FAA interface skills that a purely Army-isolated tour does not build, and the post-service credential in a joint facility context is stronger than a purely isolated military tour.
  • Deployable / contingency ATC (CTC rotation or real-world deployment)
    During a CTC rotation or a real-world deployment, your facility moves to the forward operating area and the ATNAVICS becomes the primary ATC platform. The fixed-base procedures give way to contingency procedures, the LOA framework becomes a field-expedient coordination agreement with the host-nation or coalition ATC authority, and the standard is tested against operational reality rather than garrison inspection criteria. The 150A who has done a full CTC rotation or a real deployment operating the ATNAVICS in a contested environment is a materially more credible warrant than one who has only held the fixed-base facility chief seat.

What Good Looks Like at This Rank

The good WO1 or CW2 150A is recognized by two things: the facility runs clean, and the airspace coordination requests from the CAB S-3 cell get answered by someone who knows the LOA framework cold. These are not the same skill. The first is a standards and documentation discipline; the second is a technical airspace management competency that most enlisted 15Qs never developed because they were running watches, not coordinating restricted-area activation windows with the FAA ARTCC. Concretely: the good junior 150A is the facility chief whose ARMS review results in zero major findings attributable to the warrant's portfolio — the certification records are current, the facility directive is dated within the current revision cycle, the LOAs are all renewed within their review windows, and the deal log shows a trend the airfield commander will point to in the safety council brief as improvement. The facility NCOs respect the warrant because the standard is higher than it was before — not because the warrant tried to out-NCO the tower chief in the cab, but because the paperwork and the certification board are now running correctly. On the airspace side: the good junior 150A is the warrant the CAB S-3 routes airspace deconfliction questions to before the question goes to Division. This warrant has read JP 3-52, knows what the Airspace Control Order cycle looks like at the Corps level, and can translate the MOA activation lead-time reality into language the S-3 can use in the planning timeline. That is not something a junior warrant inherits from WOCS — it is built by reading the doctrine, attending the joint planning working groups, and asking the CW4 at the next unit over what questions he got asked at his first NTC rotation.

Preview — The Next Rank

At CW3, the 150A's authority expands from the facility to the formation. You are no longer the person who runs one tower's certification board — you are the technical advisor the CAB commander routes airspace management questions to across the whole brigade footprint, and you may be the senior 150A in a formation with multiple facilities under your technical oversight. The OER that carries you to CW3 needs to demonstrate that you did more than execute the facility standard: it needs to show that you contributed to the formation's airspace management architecture, that you developed warrant officer candidates, and that you operated at the level above your current pay grade. The other shift at CW3 is the expectation of doctrinal and institutional contribution. The senior 150A community is not large — the Army maintains a relatively small number of 150A warrant officer positions — and the community-shaping happens at the CW3 and CW4 level: Stan/Eval program revisions, ATP 3-04.94 review cycles, the TRADOC curriculum for the ATC and Airspace Management Technician Course. The CW3 who has spent a CW2 tour with head-down facility administration and no engagement with the wider community is not the officer the Aviation Branch routes toward these contributions. Prepare now: build the professional network inside the 150A community (it is small enough that every CW4 and CW5 knows the other ones), attend every warrant officer professional development event the Aviation Branch runs, and start reading JP 3-52 and the current theater airspace architecture documents before the Army routes you toward a joint or ASCC-level staff billet. The CW3 who arrives at a Division G-3 Air staff having never opened JP 3-52 is visible immediately.
FAQ

150A WO1-CW2 — Frequently Asked Questions

Q01What does a WO1-CW2 150A (Air Traffic and Air Space Management Technician) actually do?
You completed the Warrant Officer Basic Course (WOBC) and the ATC and Airspace Management Technician Course at the Army Aviation Center of Excellence, Fort Novosel, Alabama, and you arrived at your first 150A billet as the facility chief (or co-chief alongside a CW3) of an Army ATC facility — the fixed-base tower at a Continental Army Airfield, a RAPCON cell inside a Combat Aviation Brigade, or the ATC section of an Airfield Operations Battalion.
Q02What's the most important thing to know as a WO1-CW2 150A?
You came out of the tower cab knowing every phraseology call cold — now you are the one who writes the standard the controllers are tested against, signs the certification appointments their careers depend on, and advises the CAB S-3 on the airspace plan that the Black Hawks fly inside.
Q03What does a typical day look like for a WO1-CW2 150A?
Time-blocked day at the WO1-CW2 150A rank tier: 0530-0630 PT with the unit — warrant officers are expected to lead PT or participate at the company level; ATC facilities run on 24-hour watches so PT is synchronized to the day-shift formation, 0630-0700 Shower, dress, review the facility night shift's watch log before the day shift brief — any deals, equipment issues, or coordination events from overnight need to be on your radar before the 0700 walk-around, 0700-0730 Facility walk-down: check strip/IDS-4 display configuration, check equipment status board,…
Q04What mistakes get WO1-CW2 150A soldiers fired or relieved?
DUI / Article 15 / drug pop — terminal for the warrant officer designation and for any future FAA-adjacent career. The Class III Aviation Medical Certificate that the ATC community relies on is sensitive to substance findings in your record; Signing a position-certification appointment under informal or social pressure from a senior NCO. Your name is on the appointment; the operational error from an under-qualified controller becomes an ARMS finding with your designation on it;…
Q05What career decisions matter most at the WO1-CW2 150A rank tier?
Stay in the ATC facility billet for a second tour vs. pursue an airspace management staff billet early — A second facility chief tour builds a deeper technical record and a second OER in a KD billet, which is valuable for the CW3 board. However, the warrants who pick up a Division G-3 Air or Corps airspace element billet as a CW2 develop the joint airspace management competency earlier, and the Aviation Branch values that diversity — the CW3 who has both a facility tour and a staff tour is the one who competes well.…
Q06What's next after WO1-CW2 for a 150A (Air Traffic and Air Space Management Technician) in the Army?
At CW3, the 150A's authority expands from the facility to the formation.
Q07What manuals and regulations does a WO1-CW2 150A need to know cold?
FAA Order JO 7110.65 — Air Traffic Control (the operational standard your facility runs to; you enforce it, you're the authority on it).; AR 95-2 — Airfield, Heliport, and Heliport Operations (the Army regulation that establishes ATC facility authority, certification standards, and ARMS review criteria; you live inside this).; ATP 3-04.94 — Army Air Traffic Services (the Army doctrine that overlays JO 7110.65 with the tactical / operational environment;…

This playbook has no tips yet. Be the first to share what you know.

Published by the Honest MOS Editorial DeskVerified against DoD/.gov sourcesUpdated May 2026Editorial standards