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153EWO1-CW2

MH-60 Pilot

WO1 to CW2 (Junior Warrant) · Army

WO1–CW2CW3–CW5
HEADS UP

Green Platoon is the selection. MQT is the proof. The regiment tolerates neither lapsed currency nor quiet cockpits — speak up before the decision point, every time, because the Night Stalker brief does not have a "probably fine" category.

The Honest MOS Read
You chose the hardest aviation job the Army fields. The 160th SOAR's reputation is not marketing — the regiment genuinely operates at altitudes, airspeeds, and terrain proximities that the conventional aviation community considers accident conditions, and they do it on purpose, at night, in weather, with a ground-force element in the back that expects the aircraft to be there when the shoot-house door opens. What that means for a WO1 or CW2 inside the regiment is that the learning curve you faced at Fort Novosel — steep as it was — was the gentle part. Mission Qualification Training on the MH-60M is the regiment's first real look at whether you belong. The SOAR builds its MQT on top of the Army baseline TC 1-210 Aircrew Training Program and extends it — airspeeds, altitudes, terrain-masking requirements, and formation-geometry standards that are not in the Army-wide ATM because the Army-wide ATM is not written for this mission. Your check-pilot for MQT is a senior warrant who has flown these missions on real objectives, and they will not grade you the way a conventional standardization pilot grades an E-5 on a range. They will ask what you would have done at the abort point before the abort point arrives. The verbal challenge system is the thing that kills pilots elsewhere and saves them here. Every crew-coordination call — aircraft transfer, abort declaration, emergency procedure initiation — has a verbal trigger that is drilled until it is reflexive. The reason is not bureaucratic: it is because in a dark cockpit at 50 feet AGL doing 120 knots into a landing zone with 30 feet of hover clearance, the pilot who assumes the PC knows what he is thinking is the pilot who waits a half-second too long. That half-second is the accident. The crew-coordination culture of the SOAR exists because the regiment did the math on what happens when it breaks down, and they buried friends before they built the system. Your garrison week revolves around simulator periods, flight scheduling, academic study of the MH-60M Mission Equipment Package, and the PT program. The fitness standard at the SOAR is not a formality — the regiment's PT requirements are enforced, and a pilot who fails to meet them is in a reassignment conversation faster than anywhere else in Army aviation. The aircraft is unforgiving, the mission is unforgiving, and the regiment expects every human component of the system to be maintained at a standard that matches. The bureaucratic life of a warrant officer in a SOAR company is smaller than at a conventional aviation unit — your OER support form is shorter, your administrative duties are lighter, your job is to fly and to keep flying well. That is a gift that comes with a cost: when the flight-evaluation record is the primary artifact of your career, the flight-evaluation record has to be clean. Every Q-1. Every task. Every event.
Career Arc
  • 01WOBC completion and Fort Novosel initial rotary-wing flight training — the entry credential before SOAR assessment and selection.
  • 02160th SOAR Assessment and Selection: the physical and mental selection event. Historically demanding and non-negotiable — candidates who are not selected return to the conventional aviation force.
  • 03Green Platoon qualification at Fort Campbell: the SOAR's initial qualification course for newly assigned warrant officers. Covers SOAR-specific procedures, tactics, crew coordination standards, and the physical and technical bar the regiment holds.
  • 04MH-60M Mission Qualification Training (MQT) progression: instrument, NVG, formation, and mission-specific task completion to SOAR ATM standards.
  • 05First deployments as FO (First Officer / non-PC) under a senior Pilot-in-Command: operational experience building before the PC upgrade window opens.
  • 06Pilot-in-Command (PC) upgrade evaluation: the career gate that formally authorizes independent command of the aircraft and the crew. Typically CW2 to early CW3 range.
  • 07WO1 to CW2 promotion: time-based, but the SOAR's up-or-out culture makes "time-based" less comfortable than it sounds at a conventional unit — the regiment evaluates fit continuously.
Common Screwups
  • ×Q-2 or Q-3 flight evaluation: at the SOAR a Q-2 is a formal flag event with a remediation plan and a timeline. A Q-3 initiates an administrative action that may result in reassignment from the regiment. There is no unit-culture cushion that absorbs a degraded flight evaluation the way a conventional unit sometimes does.
  • ×Lapsed currency — any category — not self-reported. AR 95-1 and the regiment's SOP both require self-reporting of lapsed currency. The pilot who quietly manages a lapsed currency without reporting and is found by the unit standardization pilot on a check is in a materially different administrative situation than the pilot who came forward.
  • ×Cockpit-culture violation — the silent cockpit, the assumed transfer, the unchallenged abort. One incident that the crew debrief documents is a training event. A second one is a pattern that the company standardization officer is briefing the commander about.
  • ×Off-post behavioral incident: DUI, financial misconduct, SHARP violation. At a special operations aviation unit the O-6 commander's discretion over reassignment is broad and the threshold is lower than a conventional unit's. The regiment's mission cannot absorb a pilot who is a legal or command-climate liability.
  • ×Physical fitness failure — ACFT or regimental PT standard not met. The reassignment conversation at the SOAR starts earlier and moves faster than at a conventional aviation unit. Do not let it get there.

A Day in the Life

  • 0445Wake. PT uniform. Pre-PT phone check — any 0400 duty-driver call, any DNCO alert.
  • 0500–0630Regimental PT. The regiment's program is structured and demanding — running pace and load are above conventional aviation-unit PT. Attendance and performance are tracked; this is not a suggestion block.
  • 0700–0730Shower, change, get to the flight facility or company area. Coffee is not optional.
  • 0730–0900Morning brief / flight scheduling review. If you are flying today: review the flight plan, weather, NOTAM package, passenger manifest (if VIP), and coordinate with the crew chief on the aircraft status. If not flying: ATM task-list review, academic period, or maintenance coordination.
  • 0900–1100Simulator period OR flight line — depends on the day's schedule. Simulator periods at the SOAR are deliberate and evaluated; show up with specific performance goals, not just hours to log.
  • 1100–1200Lunch. Eat. The flight schedule resumes at 1300.
  • 1300–1600Afternoon flying block or academic instruction — MH-60M systems, MEP operation, SOAR tactics review, emergency-procedures drill. If flying: mission brief, pre-flight, crew coordination rehearsal, fly the mission, land, debrief.
  • 1600–1700Post-flight debrief or end-of-day maintenance coordination. If the aircraft generated a discrepancy, this is the crew-chief coordination period — open the DA 2408-13-1, write the entry, confirm the plan before the day ends.
  • 1700–1900Individual preparation — MQT task review, ATM academic reading, mission-planning tool practice (Google Earth terrain analysis, 1:50,000 chart work), FAA written-exam preparation if ATP pathway is in progress.
  • 1900–2000Personal recovery. The regiment operates a deployment tempo that makes the garrison week feel moderate — rest during garrison is not a luxury, it is mission readiness.

Weekly Cadence

Monday through Friday in garrison runs around the flight schedule, which is the center of gravity for everything else. The flight schedule is published a week in advance by the company operations officer (S3 or company XO). Simulator periods and live-fly periods alternate based on aircraft availability and crew currency needs. Academic periods — MH-60M systems, SOAR tactics, threat integration, MEP operation — fill the hours when not flying or simming. PT runs Monday through Friday, early; there is no day the regiment considers PT optional. When the unit is in a pre-deployment train-up, the schedule density increases significantly. Multi-ship formations at night, live-fire crew-served weapon training, combined operations rehearsals with the ground-force element, and force-on-force exercises with the regiment's MH-6 Little Bird companies and CH-47 battalion fill the flying schedule. The train-up period is the time when the flight hours accumulate fastest and when the quality of every crew-coordination exchange is highest-stakes — because the ground force is watching whether the aircrew is a reliability factor or a limiting factor. Deployment itself changes the structure but not the expectation. You are flying missions, not training flights, and the operational tempo is set by the ground-force commander's targeting cycle. The pilots who do well in deployment are the pilots who treated garrison flying with deployment-level seriousness — brief properly, fly the brief, debrief honestly. The ones who did not are the ones who find deployment cognitively harder than it needs to be.

Key Skills — How to Drill Each

  1. 01
    Fly NVG single-ship and formation approaches to unprepared landing zones — 30-foot skids, precise hover, touchdown in restricted terrain — to the TC 1-210 MH-60 ATM standard the regiment publishes over the Army baseline.
    The approach to an NVG LZ at SOAR standards is executed as a deliberate procedure, not an improvised landing. Brief the approach geometry in the crew coordination before you start — LZ heading, approach angle, obstacle clearance, intended touchdown point, abort triggers — so that every call during the approach is a confirmation of the brief, not a new decision. Fly the brief. If what you see is not the brief, call the abort before you are in the compromised situation, not when you are already in it. The formation approach adds a second layer: you are flying the geometry, not the ground, and the flight lead's calls are the reference. Fly the reference.
  2. 02
    Execute deliberate crew coordination per SOAR standing operating procedures: challenge-response calls, positive aircraft transfer, abort criteria — every call made before the decision point, not during it.
    Crew coordination at the SOAR is not soft skills — it is a technical procedure. The verbal triggers are rehearsed in the simulator until they are automatic, then drilled in the aircraft until they are reflexive. If you find yourself thinking "do I need to call that?" — call it. The SOAR SOP errs toward communication, not brevity. The only call that does not need to be made is the one where the outcome is already resolved without any crew input needed. That one almost never exists.
  3. 03
    Operate MH-60M Mission Equipment Package (MEP) — FLIR, radar altimeter, GPS/DTED terrain-masking, APIU, and the defensive systems suite — in an NVG/dark-cockpit environment.
    System proficiency in the MEP is built in the simulator before you take it airborne. Every system has a failure mode — know the failure mode before you need it at altitude. FLIR interpretation is a learned skill: spend simulator periods specifically on degraded-FLIR approaches in terrain that punishes misreading the picture. The radar altimeter is your primary terrain-separation reference; know its limitations (lag, beam geometry over sloped terrain) before those limitations present themselves over a real objective.
  4. 04
    Plan and brief a low-level infiltration or exfiltration route — primary and alternate LZs — using current aviation planning charts and digital terrain tools.
    The mission planning brief is where the crew-coordination standard starts. Every decision you are going to make in the air should have been made in the planning room first: abort triggers, LZ selection criteria, threat-envelope analysis, fuel-planning with mission-abort fuel state calculated before the crew boards the aircraft. The brief that has all the answers reduces the cockpit's cognitive load to execution. The brief that leaves decisions for the air increases the load at exactly the moment when load is already highest.
  5. 05
    Perform emergency procedures from memory on the MH-60M — single-engine emergency, tail rotor failure, hydraulic emergency, ditching.
    Memory emergency procedures exist because the aircraft does not wait for you to find the checklist. Drill each memory EP until the verbal sequence is faster than speaking the words takes — it should feel automatic, not recited. Use the simulator for every EP variant, including the dual-failure scenarios that the academic review says are low-probability. Low-probability is not zero, and the crew that has not drilled it is the crew that takes three seconds longer than the aircraft has to give.
  6. 06
    Integrate with the assault force during mission brief and rehearsal — understand the ground-force commander's scheme, the abort criteria, and the pick-up order.
    The ground-force element is your employer on the mission. Understanding their scheme means you can anticipate their calls instead of reacting to them. In rehearsal, ask the one question the ground-force element did not address: what does the aircraft do if the second chalk cannot offload? What is the abort trigger from the ground-force commander's side? The crew that knows the ground scheme flies the mission with one less variable; the crew that treats the rehearsal as a passenger event shows up to the brief with more questions than the mission has time for.

Manuals & References — What Chapters Matter

  • AR 95-1 — Flight Regulations
    The regulatory framework that governs every flight, every currency requirement, every waiver, and every flight-evaluation administrative action in Army aviation. At the SOAR the currency-management and Q-2/Q-3 reporting procedures are not abstractions — they are the administrative architecture of your fitness to fly. Read chapter 4 (pilot qualifications and currency) and chapter 5 (flight evaluation program) before your first evaluation period begins.
  • TC 1-210 — Aircrew Training Program (Pilot, Utility Airplane)
    The Army baseline ATM that the regiment's MH-60 Mission Qualification Training overlay is built on top of. Understanding the baseline — and specifically how the SOAR's ATM task standards differ from and exceed the baseline — is what separates the SOAR pilot from the conventional UH-60 pilot who could also fly the platform. Know the baseline before you know the overlay.
  • TM 1-1520-285 series — MH-60M Black Hawk operator and maintenance manuals
    The TM -10 is the operator-level reference for every system in the aircraft. Pilots own the -10; the crew chief owns the -23; you both sign the DA Form 2408-13-1 and both carry accountability for the aircraft's airworthiness. Emergency procedures, performance planning, and system-limits knowledge all trace back to this manual. Know the emergency-procedures chapter before your first live emergency.
  • DA PAM 600-3 — Warrant Officer Professional Development (Aviation chapter)
    The career-management framework for 153E warrant officers. The Aviation Branch board reads OER support forms against the DA PAM 600-3 career timeline — broadening assignments, PC upgrade windows, SP/IP candidacy timing. Read the warrant officer aviation chapter before your first OER rating period and again before your first career counseling with the battalion aviation officer.
  • AR 95-23 — Unmanned Aircraft System Flight Regulations
    Relevant when your company task-organizes with Group-level or joint UAS assets during combined operations. The airspace deconfliction standard and the UAS-to-manned-aircraft coordination procedures are your problem in the cockpit; the SOAR pilot who does not know the deconfliction framework is the pilot who calls a visual separation conflict at the wrong phase of the approach.

Standards — How to Hit Each

  • Green Platoon qualification and MH-60M MQT progression current.
    The MQT completion window is published and it is not a suggestion. Build your flight scheduling around MQT task completion with margin — instrument currency, NVG currency, formation evaluations, and the emergency-procedure validations each have scheduling lead-time requirements. Track your own task list; do not wait for the company standardization NCO to tell you what is coming due in 30 days.
  • Q-1 on all ATM flight evaluation tasks per TC 1-210 and the SOAR ATM overlay.
    A Q-1 at the SOAR requires preparation across the full task list, not just the tasks on the day's scheduled profile. Simulator periods are your rehearsal. Debrief every flight — with the PC if available, alone if not — and write down two things you would do differently. The pilot who cannot name two things after a complex NVG profile is not debriefing honestly.
  • Instrument Rating current under AR 95-1.
    Fixed instrument currency windows require scheduling discipline — if your unit is not flying IFR with enough frequency to keep currency natural, you need to specifically schedule IFR training flights in the unit plan and track them yourself. Simulate the process: run through instrument approach plate pulls, alternate-airport analysis, and fuel-reserve computation in the mission-planning cell before every scheduled IFR period so the procedure is automatic when the weather forces it.
  • ACFT and regimental physical fitness standard current.
    The SOAR runs a structured PT program and tracks fitness at a level that is not typical of conventional aviation units. Show up to PT. Perform in the regiment's specific program. The pilot who treats PT as optional because the schedule is heavy is the pilot whose fitness decline becomes an administrative conversation at the regiment earlier than anywhere else in Army aviation.
  • OER support form input provided to rating chain before the deadline, with specific, measurable performance data.
    Your OER support form is the primary document between you and the Aviation Branch board. Write it with specific outputs: missions flown as FO, MQT tasks completed, any additional duties or contributions. Generic language — 'performed exceptionally' — is invisible on the board. The specific language — 'completed all 14 MH-60M MQT tasks within the 12-month window, zero Q-2 findings' — is what the board is looking for.

Technical Mistakes — Concrete Consequences

  • Busting a currency window and trying to manage it quietly.
    AR 95-1 requires self-reporting of lapsed currency within a defined window. The unit standardization pilot runs a currency check on the entire flight roster during the monthly flight-status review. When the lapsed currency is discovered there rather than reported here, the administrative action is more significant, the unit's trust in your self-regulation is damaged, and the conversation with the company commander is longer and harder. The pilot who comes forward immediately is the pilot whose currency is corrected and whose record reflects self-reporting. The pilot who is found has a different record.
  • Calling 'ready' in a crew-coordination challenge when you are not — uncertain about LZ dimensions, unsure of the abort criteria, incorrect engine-limit brief.
    The SOAR's verbal challenge system is the primary safety layer in the cockpit below 500 feet AGL at night in terrain. If you respond to the challenge without the briefed answer being verified and correct, you have agreed to a flight parameter that has not actually been confirmed. In the best case the crew catches the error in debrief. In the worst case the crew catches it from the aircraft's behavior at the objective. Speak up before the decision point; every time is the right time.
  • Under-briefing the assault-force element on aircraft capabilities and abort criteria during the mission brief.
    The ground-force element builds its plan around what the aircraft can do. The crew that briefs vaguely on hover time, LZ dimensions, or abort triggers is the crew whose aircraft is expected to do something it has not committed to do. When the abort happens — and if the criteria are unclear, the abort happens at the wrong time — the ground-force element is surprised and the mission timeline collapses. Brief every constraint explicitly. If the ground force does not like the constraint, that is a planning problem to solve before launch, not an operational surprise to absorb at the objective.
  • Leaving DA Form 2408-13-1 discrepancy entries uncoordinated with the crew chief before the next scheduled flight.
    The DA 2408-13-1 is the airworthiness record you sign. An open discrepancy entry that you and the crew chief are not aligned on is an entry the production control officer and the brigade AMO will read if the next flight generates a maintenance event related to the discrepancy. The pilot who signs the aircraft without understanding every open entry on the -13-1 has extended their signature authority into the maintenance record they did not personally verify. At the SOAR that gap is closed before every flight — not because the paperwork is important, but because the aircraft is.
  • Treating simulator periods as administrative time — showing up unprepared, running through the profile without personal performance goals.
    The SOAR simulator is the only place you can fail a FLIR-degraded approach into a confined LZ without a Class A mishap report. Pilots who use simulator periods as logged hours rather than deliberate skill rehearsal arrive at the corresponding live-flight events with reflex patterns that have not been stress-tested. The standardization pilot who watches a pilot in the box knows within 20 minutes whether the simulator preparation was serious. That assessment does not disappear from the company evaluation culture.

Career Decisions at This Rank

  • PC upgrade timing — pursue the evaluation window as soon as eligible or wait for a more favorable unit tempo?
    The PC upgrade evaluation window at the SOAR is tied to flight hours, MQT task completion, and the company standardization officer's evaluation of your readiness. In most cases 'waiting for a more favorable tempo' is a rationalization for avoiding a hard evaluation. The regiment's operational tempo rarely creates a genuinely quiet window; the PC who waits for calm water usually waits through their entire WO1-CW2 career and arrives at CW3 without the PC designation. File the evaluation request when MQT is complete and the standardization officer says you are ready — then be ready.
  • Broadening tour — accept a non-flying billet or non-SOAR assignment if offered?
    DA PAM 600-3 identifies broadening assignments as part of the warrant officer career model, and the Aviation Branch board considers them. At the SOAR specifically, a broadening tour outside the regiment (conventional CAB, test and evaluation, schoolhouse instructor, joint assignment) can be career-broadening in the literal sense — exposure to aviation systems and command structures the SOAR's operating environment does not provide. The trade-off is flight currency and SOAR cultural continuity. The honest guidance: if the broadening assignment is genuinely broadening — a qualification you would not get at the SOAR, a system you would not fly, a joint environment you would not otherwise access — accept it. If it is just a staff ride, negotiate for a flying billet.
  • Re-enlistment / retention — sign another commitment or prepare to transition?
    Army aviation warrants serve on a series of Active Duty Service Obligations (ADSOs) tied to flight training, SOAR assignment, and school attendance. Know your current ADSO expiration date and the length of any new commitment before any retention conversation. The SOAR's civilian-market value at the CW2 level is real — fixed-wing and rotary-wing SOAR hours translate into airline, federal law enforcement, and defense-contractor pilot programs at higher entry points than conventional aviation hours. The decision is personal: if the regiment and the mission are what you want, re-up and build toward PC and SP. If the transition is the goal, manage the ADSO math carefully so you leave on your terms.
  • Additional qualification — MH-6 cross-qualification, MH-47 cross-qualification, or focus on the MH-60 track?
    The SOAR's warrant officer community includes pilots who are cross-qualified on multiple platforms. Multi-platform qualification increases operational utility inside the regiment and makes the warrant more broadly assignable across SOAR battalions. It also increases the training burden on a schedule that is already demanding. The guidance: if the regiment offers the cross-qualification opportunity in your window, accept it and build the hours. If it is elective and competes with MQT completion on your primary platform, complete MQT first.

How the Seat Varies by Unit Type

  • 160th SOAR — 1st Battalion (MH-60 / MH-6 at Fort Campbell)
    The primary MH-60 assault and direct-action battalion. SOAR 1-160 is the regiment's highest-tempo MH-60 unit — direct action, personnel recovery, and CSAR missions at the highest national priority level. New warrant officers typically begin here after Green Platoon.
  • 160th SOAR — 2nd Battalion (MH-47 heavy assault at Fort Campbell)
    MH-47 battalion, not MH-60. If you cross-qualify here, the platform and mission profile are substantially different — long-range heavy assault versus light precision insertion. The crew-coordination standard and the special operations culture are identical; the aircraft and its performance envelope are not.
  • 160th SOAR — 3rd Battalion (Fort Lewis / JBLM)
    Pacific-theater oriented SOAR battalion. Geographic assignment differs but the operational standard, the MQT program, and the evaluation framework are uniform across the regiment. Distance from Fort Campbell means a different daily environment and a different network of senior warrant mentors; the regiment's culture and standards are still homogeneous.
  • 160th SOAR — OCONUS rotations and detachment assignments
    SOAR elements deploy in small unit rotations. A deployed detachment environment is operationally real with a smaller daily-management structure than a garrison battalion. The junior warrant in a deployed SOAR detachment flies more missions per month than in garrison and interacts with the ground-force element at a higher daily frequency. This is the environment the career was built for; also the environment where bad habits become accidents the fastest.

What Good Looks Like at This Rank

The good WO1 or CW2 Night Stalker is not the pilot who is trying to be noticed — they are the pilot who is trying to be technically unimpeachable. Their flight briefings are complete, their abort criteria are explicit, and their crew-coordination calls come before the decision point without prompting. The company standardization officer's one data point about this pilot is that they have never had to prompt them for a call that was already due. That is not a low bar; inside the regiment, it is the bar. They also debrief honestly. After every NVG flight they can name two specific things they would do differently, and the two things get named in the crew debrief rather than privately noted. The senior warrant in the right seat stops correcting them around month fourteen because there is less to correct — and starts asking what they would have done instead, which is a different conversation. The PC upgrade evaluation does not feel like a test; it feels like confirmation of what the crew has been doing for a year. The thing that makes them genuinely valuable to the company, though, is what happens in planning. They do not wait to be assigned a planning role. By the second or third operational cycle they are producing route-analysis products that the PC uses without revision, because they have understood the ground-force scheme well enough to choose LZ alternates that the ground-force element would have chosen if they had been doing the route analysis. The planning product is where SOAR pilot quality is most visible and least measurable, which is exactly why the senior warrants are watching it.

Preview — The Next Rank

The transition from WO1/CW2 to CW3 at the SOAR is the transition from learning the seat to owning it. At CW3 you are expected to carry Pilot-in-Command authority — the flight, the crew, and the mission outcome are yours to brief, fly, and debrief. The senior warrant in the right seat who was teaching you two years ago is now your peer, and the new WO1 in the left seat is watching your crew-coordination calls the same way you watched your PC's. The SP/IP candidacy conversation opens at CW3 with the right record. Being named a Standardization Pilot or Instructor Pilot is not primarily a rank milestone — it is a technical authority designation. It means the commander trusts your evaluation of another pilot's competency. Building that trust requires a Q-1 evaluation record and a reputation for honest debriefs before the designation is offered. Build both. The administrative load increases at CW3 — OER support form writing for your junior warrants, flight-evaluation program participation, mission planning contributions that are expected to be independent rather than supervised. The CW3 who arrives at the rank prepared for that load is the one who built the habits at CW2 rather than discovering them at CW3.
FAQ

153E WO1-CW2 — Frequently Asked Questions

Q01What does a WO1-CW2 153E (MH-60 Pilot) actually do?
You completed initial rotary-wing flight training at Fort Novosel (the U.S. Army Aviation Center of Excellence, renamed from Fort Rucker in 2023), passed the 160th SOAR Assessment and Selection process, survived Green Platoon qualification, and arrived at Fort Campbell as a new MH-60 Pilot Warrant Officer in one of the SOAR's assault or direct-action companies.
Q02What's the most important thing to know as a WO1-CW2 153E?
Green Platoon is the selection.
Q03What does a typical day look like for a WO1-CW2 153E?
Time-blocked day at the WO1-CW2 153E rank tier: 0445 Wake. PT uniform. Pre-PT phone check — any 0400 duty-driver call, any DNCO alert, 0500–0630 Regimental PT. The regiment's program is structured and demanding — running pace and load are above conventional aviation-unit PT. Attendance and performance are tracked; this is not a suggestion block, 0700–0730 Shower, change, get to the flight facility or company area. Coffee is not optional, 0730–0900 Morning brief / flight scheduling review. If you are flying today: review the flight plan, weather, NOTAM package, passenger manifest (if VIP),…
Q04What mistakes get WO1-CW2 153E soldiers fired or relieved?
Q-2 or Q-3 flight evaluation: at the SOAR a Q-2 is a formal flag event with a remediation plan and a timeline. A Q-3 initiates an administrative action that may result in reassignment from the regiment. There is no unit-culture cushion that absorbs a degraded flight evaluation the way a conventional unit sometimes does; Lapsed currency — any category — not self-reported. AR 95-1 and the regiment's SOP both require self-reporting of lapsed currency.…
Q05What career decisions matter most at the WO1-CW2 153E rank tier?
PC upgrade timing — pursue the evaluation window as soon as eligible or wait for a more favorable unit tempo? — The PC upgrade evaluation window at the SOAR is tied to flight hours, MQT task completion, and the company standardization officer's evaluation of your readiness. In most cases 'waiting for a more favorable tempo' is a rationalization for avoiding a hard evaluation. The regiment's operational tempo rarely creates a genuinely quiet window; the PC who waits for calm water usually waits through their entire WO1-CW2 career and arrives at CW3 without the PC designation.…
Q06What's next after WO1-CW2 for a 153E (MH-60 Pilot) in the Army?
The transition from WO1/CW2 to CW3 at the SOAR is the transition from learning the seat to owning it.
Q07What manuals and regulations does a WO1-CW2 153E need to know cold?
AR 95-1 — Flight Regulations: the Army-wide regulatory framework governing pilot currency, waivers, and the flight evaluation system. Every flight you log in the Army aviation system is governed by this regulation.; TC 1-210 — Aircrew Training Program (Pilot, Utility Airplane): the baseline ATM that the regiment builds its MH-60 Mission Qualification Training (MQT) on top of. Know the baseline before you learn the SOAR overlay.;…

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