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AWE6

Naval Aircrewman

E-6 (Staff Sergeant) · Navy

E1–E3E-4E-5E-6E-7E8–E9
HEADS UP

AW1 is the last rank where your flight-line credibility is earned one hop at a time — and it is also the last rank before the anchor changes everything about the job. Build your Chief packet the same way you brief a SAR case: with the evidence in hand before you open your mouth. Your eEVAL profile, your NEC, your warfare device, and the names of the crewmen you have put through Rescue Swimmer and NEC C-school are the packet. Start now.

The Honest MOS Read
You are the LPO of the aircrew section, which in a fleet MH-60R or P-8A squadron means 10 to 25 designated crewmen across your community's platforms, all of whom fly missions that involve either prosecuting submarines, conducting mine countermeasures sweeps, running real-world SAR cases at sea, or operating ISR mission systems over named areas of interest. The flight schedule has your name on the hardest sorties — not because the ops officer is rewarding you, but because the aircraft commander asks for you by name when the tasking is real and the weather is marginal. In garrison the job is personnel management wrapped around technical leadership. You build the section's Aircrew Training Program (ATP) documentation, brief the department head on crewman currency at the weekly ops-maintenance-safety sync, manage survival equipment and mission-system consumables accountability at the LPO level, and write four to six eEVALs per cycle that pick the next NWAE slate for your AW2s and AW3s. The crewman who does not get a strong bullet from you this cycle loses ground on the AW1 competition, and the crewman who does get the strong bullet knows it and so does the wardroom. The Chief board conversation is no longer hypothetical. Your LCPO is reading your record with the same eye the selection board uses: eEVAL profile, warfare device currency, NEC maintained, community reputation built through named real-world missions. He is not building your packet for you — he is confirming that the one you built is worth defending at the wardroom. The crewmen you mentor into Rescue Swimmer, NEC C-school, STA-21, or the Aviation Warrant Officer pipeline are the concrete evidence that your section produces. Flight currency is where AW1 LPOs occasionally make the mistake of prioritizing the section over their own record. You cannot brief the department head on aircrew currency you do not personally maintain. Your NATOPS checkride, swim quals, SERE Level C, and PRT are not administrative requirements — they are the credibility behind every standard you enforce on the AW3s who are watching whether you show up to the pool. A lapsed LPO sets a lapsed section, and in a flying community, lapsed is the one thing you cannot recover from quietly. The post-Navy conversation starts at AW1 too — not in an urgent way, but in a deliberate way. The civilian aviation market, the defense contractor airborne ISR world, and the federal aviation security community all have demand for crewmen with your NEC-coded competency set, your SAR execution background, and your NATOPS credentialing. The crewman who runs the section at AW1 with the post-Navy plan already sketched is the one who arrives at retirement on his own terms rather than the detailer's.
Career Arc
  • 01Months 1-6 at AW1: establish LPO credibility — ATP documentation current, currency tracking clean, eEVAL cycle understood, LCPO relationship set before the first Chief-board conversation.
  • 02Year 1-2: first Chief board look — LCPO walks the record with you; the eEVAL profile, warfare device, NEC, and community reputation are the packet, not the exam.
  • 03Rolling: section produces at least one NEC C-school, Rescue Swimmer, commissioning, or warrant accession per year — pipeline output is the LPO metric the commanding officer reads.
  • 04Year 2-4: real-world mission execution as the senior crewman — named SAR cases, ASW prosecutions, AMCM sweeps, ISR named tasking — because the Chief board reads named accomplishments, not generic aviation bullets.
  • 05Continuous: personal NATOPS currency, swim quals, SERE, PRT maintained without exception — the LPO who lets his own quals lapse while briefing section currency is the LPO who loses the mess's respect.
  • 06Year 3-5: Chief selection or continuation plan — a PCS cycle that sets up the Chief board look at the next command, a wing standardization billet, or a fleet replacement squadron (FRS) instructor seat that deepens the profile.
Common Screwups
  • ×Falsifying or papering over aircrew currency numbers in the squadron training database. The ops officer catches the first discrepancy and it ends the Chief packet — and in an aviation community with an active mishap-reporting culture, it ends faster than anywhere else.
  • ×DUI or alcohol-related incident. The NPC detailing community for naval aviation is small; the incident travels before the legal process closes. Flight status is on hold immediately and the Chief board sees the NJP.
  • ×Financial mismanagement — collections, garnishment, or a report from the command financial specialist. Security clearance review triggers at first delinquency and flight status follows.
  • ×Fraternization with a junior crewman. The goat locker and the wardroom both see it; in a squadron with a 40-person crewman section, the chain of command knows before the week is out.
  • ×OPSEC breach — posting sortie tracks, acoustic contact reports, or mission-system screenshots on a personal device or social media. The intelligence community and the squadron security manager both file reports; NCIS involvement follows the next morning.

A Day in the Life

  • 0500Personal PT — swim days are non-negotiable at AW1. The pool at 0500 is where currency maintenance becomes habit. Field days with the section: 3-mile run before muster.
  • 0615Check squadron training database — verify overnight PRT completions, flag any upcoming NATOPS or swim qual expiries, update ATP tracker if a recurrency event ran last night.
  • 0700Section muster — accountability, uniform inspection, training plan for the day, upcoming flight schedule review. Short, direct, done before the brief starts.
  • 0730Pre-mission brief with aircraft commander and flight crew for the day's sorties. As LPO or senior crewman, you are the one who raised the weather or equipment concern already — not the one raising it at brief time.
  • 0800-0830Pre-flight inspection. Your section of the aircraft is yours — sonobuoy dispenser loaded and verified, hoist rigging checked, survival equipment stowed and logged, cockpit sensors pre-checked per checklist.
  • 0900-1200Flight sorties — ASW training hop, AMCM systems training, SAR proficiency flight, or real-world mission. As senior crewman: mission execution, system operation, radio comms, real-time debrief notes.
  • 1200-1230Post-flight inspection, aircraft discrepancy log entries, survival equipment post-flight check signed before anyone leaves the flight line.
  • 1230-1300Mission debrief with aircraft commander — your action-result-impact notes become the section's contribution to the operational record and the safety program.
  • 1300-1430Administrative block — eEVAL drafting, ATP documentation update, survival equipment serviceability log review, NEC pipeline packet status, section correspondence.
  • 1430-1530Training event — emergency procedure brief and chair-fly with AW3 section; hoist rig and inspection review with AW2 working toward Rescue Swimmer qualification; PQS sign-off session.
  • 1530-1600Department head sync or maintenance-ops-safety sync prep — build or update the section currency brief before the meeting, not during it.
  • 1600-1700Equipment locker walk — physical inspection of survival equipment, O2 systems, sonobuoy storage. Sign the log personally. This is the one action that separates the LPO who owns the account from the one who trusts it.
  • 1700Secure section, debrief the day with the LCPO if there is a personnel or readiness issue worth naming, check the next day's flight schedule for any tasking that needs early prep.

Weekly Cadence

Monday through Wednesday is the operational execution window — flight schedule heavy, brief and debrief cycles, real-world alert posture if the squadron is on the SAR rotation. The LPO's administrative work fits into the afternoon blocks and the in-port days; trying to squeeze eEVAL drafts between brief and pre-flight produces the kind of eEVAL the senior rater rewrites. Thursday is the training and documentation day in most fleet squadrons — no flight schedule pressure means ATP documentation updates, eEVAL drafts, pipeline packet reviews, and the equipment locker physical inspection. The section's training calendar for the following two weeks should be locked on Thursday and posted before Friday muster so the AW3s can plan their personal study schedule against the coming events. Friday is the accounting day. Currency tracker updated, any outstanding PQS sign-offs completed, NATOPS or swim qual expirations due in the next 30 days scheduled with the flight scheduler before the weekend. A Friday that ends with a clean tracker and no unresolved currency flags is the Friday that makes Monday's brief predictable. In a deployment work-up cycle or on a real-world surge, none of this cadence applies — you run the section on whatever schedule the ops officer posts, and the administrative work happens at midnight or not at all. That is normal; the difference between a strong LPO and a struggling one is whether the tracker is still current when the surge ends.

Key Skills — How to Drill Each

  1. 01
    Run the section-level ATP — NATOPS checkrides, simulator events, emergency procedure evaluations, swim currency, SERE Level C, ORM briefing cadence — at or above squadron standard with reporting the ops officer can defend at the wing.
    Build the ATP tracker in the same format the wing standardization team uses so your numbers survive a no-notice eval without reformatting. Pull the current wing ATP instruction and build your section tracking matrix off its column headers — not off the prior LPO's spreadsheet that predates the last instruction update. When you brief currency at department-head sync, brief it as status and trend, not just a pass/fail snapshot: 'three crewmen within 30 days of NATOPS expiry, two scheduled, one awaiting sim availability' is the brief that reads like an LPO who sees the problem before it is a problem.
  2. 02
    Execute as the senior crewman on the squadron's most demanding real-world missions — SAR, ASW prosecution, AMCM sweep, named ISR tasking — and debrief clean without sanitizing the gaps.
    Request the hard sorties, not just the ones that look good on the eEVAL bullet. The aircraft commander who asks for you by name at 0200 for the real SAR case is building the reference the Chief board needs to read. After every real-world evolution, write the debrief narrative the ops officer can quote at the wing safety review — action, result, lesson learned, one change to the section SOP. That is the material that converts flight hours into a Chief-board-competitive record.
  3. 03
    Manage survival equipment, life raft, O2 system, and mission-system consumables accountability at the LPO level — chain-of-custody documentation and serviceability records that survive a no-notice NAVAIR or wing-level inspection.
    Create a monthly physical inspection cycle for all survival equipment that produces a signed log, not just a database entry. The wing and NAVAIR standardization teams are looking for the gap between what the database says and what is actually in the equipment locker — if those two things never differ under your watch, you brief the inspection without a caveat. Treat the equipment accountability as a flight-safety program, not a supply program: the survival gear that has a gap is the gear that does not work when the aircraft goes in the water.
  4. 04
    Build and defend the section aircrew readiness brief to the maintenance, ops, and safety officer — NATOPS currency, swim quals, recurrency events completed, emergency procedure eval status — without the wardroom rewriting the numbers.
    Own one authoritative tracker — not three spreadsheets from three different LPOs — and brief from it. Sync it against the squadron training database weekly and resolve discrepancies before the weekly debrief rather than at the debrief. The ops officer who has to correct your numbers once will start building his own parallel tracker. The ops officer who has never had to correct your numbers will defend your brief at the CO's update without caveats.
  5. 05
    Write eEVAL blocks the senior rater can defend at a wardroom board — named mission accomplishments, classified-safe action-result-impact bullets, and the language the Chief board actually reads.
    Pull the last three Chief selection board precept summaries from MyNavyHR and identify the traits the board explicitly named. Write your AW2 and AW3 bullets against those traits. The weak eEVAL bullet is 'performed duties in a professional manner and supported the mission.' The strong bullet names the mission, the crewman's specific role, and the outcome — 'Led rescue hoist recovery of two survivors in sea state 3 at 0215 as primary crewman; survivors recovered and transferred to EMS within 47 minutes of initial SAR tasking.' Safe for an unclassified eval and reads differently at the wardroom table.
  6. 06
    Mentor an AW2's NWAE, NEC pipeline, Rescue Swimmer, commissioning, or warrant accession packet from idea to selection — and counsel honestly when the path does not match the crewman.
    Pull the current NAVADMIN for Rescue Swimmer and NEC source-rating billet availability before you tell an AW2 to pursue a path. An honest conversation about the physical standard for the Rescue Swimmer pipeline — the swim qualifying standards, the attrition rate at Rescue Swimmer school at NAS Pensacola, the physical profile requirements that the aviation medical examiner enforces — saves a crewman a year of preparation for a pipeline that was never realistic. The crewmen you counsel correctly remember it when they are AW1s.

Manuals & References — What Chapters Matter

  • OPNAVINST 3710.7 (current series) — NATOPS General Flight and Operating Instructions.
    The umbrella authority for every crewman currency action, mishap-reporting requirement, and physiological-episode reporting chain that you now own at the LPO level. You are no longer reading this to pass a checkride — you are the person the AW3s ask when there is a policy question at the flight line, and you are the person the ops officer expects to quote it correctly at department-head sync without pulling it up.
  • OPNAVINST 5102.1 (current series) — Naval Aviation Safety Program.
    The authority for hazard reporting (HAZREP), near-miss reporting, and the mishap-prevention culture you are now responsible for building at the section level. The LPO who creates a culture where AW3s report near-misses before they become Class C mishaps is the LPO whose section passes the NAVAIR safety program inspection without findings. The chapter on the Aviation Safety Officer's relationship with the senior enlisted is the one to own before the first wing stan-eval visit.
  • NWP 3-50.1 — Naval Search and Rescue Manual.
    You teach junior crewmen off Parts II and III (search planning and rescue execution); you operate the tactical picture in Part IV. As LPO, you are also the reference the ops officer consults when the SAR planning question is about crew qualifications or environmental limits — know the crew currency requirements for SAR execution as well as you know the rescue procedures.
  • NAVPERS 18068 Vol II — Manual of Navy Enlisted Manpower and Personnel Classifications (NEC catalog).
    The authoritative source for the AW NEC codes — AWF (helicopter ASW), AWO (airborne mine countermeasures), AWR (maritime patrol/reconnaissance), AWV (avionics/weapons integration), and the Rescue Swimmer NEC. Verify current NEC codes and source-rating qualifications from the current NAVADMIN, not from a stale share drive copy. The pipeline advice you give an AW2 is only as good as the current billet market data backing it.
  • OPNAVINST 1306.2 series — Enlisted Personnel Assignment Policy.
    Governs the detailing priorities and sea/shore rotation that determine where your crewmen can realistically compete for the next NEC C-school billet. You counsel AW2s on the billet market using this instruction and the current NAVADMIN from NPC — not rumors from the previous LPO's sea bag.
  • Squadron Aircrew Training Program (ATP) instruction and wing-level NATOPS standardization instruction.
    The two local-authority documents you are accountable to as LPO — the command ATP defines your section's training and recurrency calendar, and the wing standardization instruction defines the eval criteria the stan-eval team will use when they walk in unannounced. Know both current revisions before you build the next quarterly training calendar.

Standards — How to Hit Each

  • Chief board packet under active construction with the LCPO's eye on every line — eEVAL profile defensible at the wardroom and CO level; AW warfare device current and NEC maintained.
    Schedule a sit-down with your LCPO at the beginning of each eval cycle, not at the end. Bring your eEVAL draft, your community reputation assessment, and your pipeline output numbers. The LCPO who is surprised by your record at the Chief board review is the LCPO who was not in the conversation early enough. Ask what a competitive AW1 looks like this cycle in your community NEC and build toward that standard explicitly.
  • Section aircrew currency — NATOPS checkrides, swim quals, SERE, ORM, recurrency events — defensible at the department head and CO level every cycle, no caveats.
    Build the monthly ATP roll-up brief as if the wing stan-eval team is in the room. If you cannot brief a crewman's currency without a caveat, you do not brief it — you fix it first. The ops officer who hears a caveat from you once starts maintaining a parallel tracker. The one who never needs to is the one who trusts your numbers at the CO's brief.
  • Survival equipment and mission-system consumable accountability clean — serviceability records intact, inspection trail current, no unresolved discrepancies when the wing spot-check arrives.
    Do the physical inspection monthly, not quarterly. The gap between a monthly inspection and a quarterly one is where the degraded O2 regulator seal or the expired flare kit lives — and they surface during a wing spot-check, not during a scheduled annual review. Sign the inspection log yourself, not the most junior petty officer in the section.
  • Pipeline output — NEC C-school selectees, Rescue Swimmer selectees, commissioning or warrant packets — at least one from the section per year, and the commanding officer can name them.
    Treat accession output as a mandatory metric, not a nice-to-have. At the beginning of the year, identify the top-three accession candidates in the section, build the pipeline conversation with each of them, and report progress to the LCPO quarterly. A section that produces zero pipeline output in a year is a section with a documented LPO development gap — the eval reflects it whether the word is written or not.
  • Personal flying-status currency maintained — NATOPS, swim quals, SERE, PRT — matched by your own actual performance, not by the brief you give at quarters.
    Track your own currency on the same board you track the section's. When you pull AW3 Jones from the flight schedule for a lapsed swim qual, your own swim qual expiry date is already visible on that board to every crewman in the section. If your date is clean, you have standing. If it is not, the conversation you have with Jones carries no weight and you know it before you open your mouth.

Technical Mistakes — Concrete Consequences

  • Briefing aircrew currency numbers you have not personally verified in the squadron training database.
    The ops officer catches it once and it surfaces in your next eEVAL under the heading of 'attention to detail' — the silent way the wardroom documents that it no longer fully trusts the LPO's brief. Your Chief packet carries that read for the next two cycles.
  • Delegating survival-equipment serviceability verification to a senior AW2 without a personal spot-check cycle.
    When he transfers PCS and the equipment accountability gap surfaces in a no-notice wing inspection, the discrepancy is under the LPO's name — not the AW2's. NAVAIR finding attribution is command-level, and the LPO who was not in the equipment locker personally is the one briefed to the CO by the safety officer.
  • Confusing seniority with personal NATOPS currency — letting your own quals lapse while briefing the section's status.
    Every AW3 in the section sees the expiry date gap between your brief and your currency card within 72 hours of each other. The standard collapses from the top down; the next time you pull an AW3 for a lapsed qual, the conversation ends before it starts and the LCPO hears about it from the flight scheduler.
  • Going around the LCPO to the maintenance officer, safety officer, or commanding officer on a section personnel issue.
    The chiefs talk. The goat locker hears about it before the CO finishes the conversation, and in a 40-person crewman section in a community this small, the word travels to your next duty station before you do. The Chief board is a reputation board as much as a record board.
  • Treating the Rescue Swimmer or commissioning pipeline mentoring conversation as a checkbox rather than a genuine counseling session.
    A crewman who pursues the Rescue Swimmer pipeline on your endorsement and discovers 18 months in that the physical standard or the billet market was never realistic remembers that counseling conversation when he is an AW1 writing eEVALs of his own — and the community hears about it at the next chief's mess.

Career Decisions at This Rank

  • Chief board — compete now, or wait for a stronger record cycle?
    The Chief board is a relative competition within your year group and community. 'Waiting for a stronger record' sometimes means exactly that — a specific eEVAL cycle or a named assignment that is realistically 18 months away will measurably improve the profile. But 'waiting' that is really 'avoiding the conversation with the LCPO' is a different calculation. Sit down with your LCPO and get an honest read on where the record stands relative to the competitive range for your NEC community. If the answer is 'not yet — here is what needs to change,' build the plan and execute. If the answer is 'you are competitive, put in the package,' stop hedging.
  • Rescue Swimmer NEC — is this the right time, and the right physical standard?
    The Rescue Swimmer NEC is one of the most respected credentials in the AW community and one of the most physically demanding pipelines in naval aviation. The AW1 who has maintained the swim standard through E6 and wants to add the NEC is in the right conversation. The AW1 who is borderline on the swim standard and is approaching the physical profile ceiling is in a different conversation — pursue it honestly, train to the standard, and then decide based on where the performance actually lands, not where you hope it does. Rescue Swimmer school at NAS Pensacola has a real attrition rate and the physical standard is enforced without exception.
  • Limited Duty Officer (LDO) or Chief Warrant Officer — aviation versus another path?
    The LDO accession program has community-specific quotas that vary by year group and NEC. Verify current accession availability for the AW LDO designator (681X — Aviation Ordnance, or the appropriate aviation operations LDO community) against the most recent NAVADMIN before building a package. The LDO package is not a backup plan for the Chief board — it is a distinct career path with a different set of billets and a different post-service market. The AW who pursues LDO because he is frustrated with the Chief board timeline builds a weaker package than the AW who pursues LDO because the administrative and technical leadership billet structure of the officer community genuinely matches what he wants to do for the next 12 years.
  • Re-enlist / Selective Re-enlistment Bonus versus terminal leave and post-Navy aviation market?
    The AW1 with an NEC and an active flight record is one of the more portable community members in naval aviation. Civilian defense contractor airborne ISR platforms, commercial SAR operators, and federal aviation security agencies all have documented demand for crewmen with acoustic processing, mine countermeasures, or maritime patrol sensor operation backgrounds — but the demand varies significantly by year, NEC community, and geographic market. If the Chief board is a realistic path and two or three more years of flight credentialing would measurably improve the civilian value proposition, the SRB math usually favors re-enlisting. If the Chief board is uncertain and the post-Navy market is genuinely better now, the SRB window provides capital for the transition but is not a reason to stay in a job you have outgrown.

How the Seat Varies by Unit Type

  • Fleet MH-60R HSM squadron (Helicopter Maritime Strike)
    The highest operational tempo for an AWF or AWO crewman. Carrier strike group deployments, real-world ASW tasking in contested maritime environments, SAR alert rotation while embarked on a DDG or deployed with the CSG. The LPO role here is 24/7 during deployment — the flight schedule does not stop because you have administrative work. Strong operational record for the Chief board; high burnout risk if the family situation is not solid.
  • Fleet MH-60S HSC squadron (Helicopter Sea Combat)
    Cargo, vertical replenishment, and SAR-primary focus rather than ASW. AWV and AWO communities are heavier here. The pace is operational but not ASW-intensity. The LPO in an HSC squadron runs a broader crewman qualification mix and may manage crewmen across both the combat support and SAR mission areas simultaneously.
  • Fleet P-8A VP squadron (Maritime Patrol)
    AWF and AWR crewmen in a land-based environment — no shipboard deployment cycle, but operational detachments to deployed locations worldwide. Longer crew rest cycles and more deliberate mission planning than rotary-wing; the tradeoff is less real-world SAR execution and more ISR pattern-of-life work. The LPO in a VP squadron manages a larger section with more diverse NEC backgrounds and a longer operational tempo on the ground.
  • Fleet Replacement Squadron (FRS) instructor billet
    Best billet for the Chief board if your record is already strong enough to let the teaching time add depth rather than just hours. The FRS LPO interacts with every student crewman passing through the community, develops instructional credibility the fleet squadron never provides, and builds a professional network across the community. The operational record will not grow here — your prior fleet record has to carry that weight.
  • Wing or TYCOM standardization cell
    Rare at AW1 but exists — the wing-level stan-eval crewman billet puts you in every squadron in the wing with the authority to evaluate rather than just execute. The fleet reputation you bring into this billet matters; you are evaluating the performance of LPOs who may have years more time in the seat.

What Good Looks Like at This Rank

The good AW1 LPO is the person the LCPO sends the wing standardization team to when they arrive unannounced. Not because she prepped for the visit but because the section runs the same way every week whether the wing is watching or not. The ATP tracker is current, the equipment locker is signed and dated, the currency brief is clean, and when the stan-eval team asks to see the last three real-world SAR debriefs, they are in a folder that was built for the mission, not for the inspection. Her crewmen's eEVAL profile looks like a promotion timeline rather than an employment record. The AW3 she mentored into NEC C-school last year is now the AW2 the LCPO is watching for the next AW1 slate. The AW2 she counseled away from the Rescue Swimmer pipeline because the swim standard was not there went to the AWF acoustic track instead and is the most proficient sonobuoy operator in the squadron. Those outcomes are what the Chief board reads as the LPO metric — not just the personal flight record, though that is clean too. When the aircraft commander has a real-world SAR case at 0200, she is the crewman on the hoist — not because the flight schedule assigned her, but because the aircraft commander called the duty desk and asked for her by name. After the mission, the debrief she writes is the one that shows up in the wing's annual safety review as the case study. That is what the Chief board means when it reads 'demonstrated sustained superior performance in the aircrew community.' It is not a phrase — it is a record.

Preview — The Next Rank

The anchor changes the job more than any other promotion in the rating. As an AW1 LPO you managed a section of crewmen toward mission execution. As an AWC LCPO you manage enlisted aircrew execution across an entire department — potentially 15-40 crewmen across multiple platform types, multiple NECs, and multiple mission communities — and you do it while the wardroom expects you to represent the goat locker's position in every significant command decision. The first thing that changes is the isolation. The Chief's Mess is a parallel leadership structure with its own accountability, its own standards, and its own culture — you cannot run the aircrew section the same way you ran it as an AW1 because the mess is now watching whether you live up to the anchor as much as whether you run the section correctly. CPO 365 is the formal transition, but the informal transition is deckplate: the goat locker watches whether the new chief still shows up to the pool, still shows up to the flight line, still briefs his own currency with the same standard he held the AW3s to. The second thing that changes is the span of influence. As AW1 you shaped four to six crewmen's eval cycles. As AWC you shape the eval cycles that pick the AW1 and AWC slates — the people who will run the aircrew sections for the next decade. That is a different kind of accountability than managing a pre-flight checklist, and it is the one the goat locker will hold you to before the wardroom ever asks.
FAQ

AW E6 — Frequently Asked Questions

Q01What does a E6 AW (Naval Aircrewman) actually do?
You are LPO of the squadron aircrew section — a pool of 10-25 designated crewmen across your community's platforms — or you hold a specialized LPO seat: senior rescue swimmer section lead, senior acoustic processing cell lead, senior AMCM systems operator, or senior ISR mission-system crewman.
Q02What's the most important thing to know as a E6 AW?
AW1 is the last rank where your flight-line credibility is earned one hop at a time — and it is also the last rank before the anchor changes everything about the job.
Q03What does a typical day look like for a E6 AW?
Time-blocked day at the E6 AW rank tier: 0500 Personal PT — swim days are non-negotiable at AW1. The pool at 0500 is where currency maintenance becomes habit. Field days with the section: 3-mile run before muster, 0615 Check squadron training database — verify overnight PRT completions, flag any upcoming NATOPS or swim qual expiries, update ATP tracker if a recurrency event ran last night, 0700 Section muster — accountability, uniform inspection, training plan for the day, upcoming flight schedule review. Short, direct, done before the brief starts,…
Q04What mistakes get E6 AW soldiers fired or relieved?
Falsifying or papering over aircrew currency numbers in the squadron training database. The ops officer catches the first discrepancy and it ends the Chief packet — and in an aviation community with an active mishap-reporting culture, it ends faster than anywhere else; DUI or alcohol-related incident. The NPC detailing community for naval aviation is small; the incident travels before the legal process closes. Flight status is on hold immediately and the Chief board sees the NJP;…
Q05What career decisions matter most at the E6 AW rank tier?
Chief board — compete now, or wait for a stronger record cycle? — The Chief board is a relative competition within your year group and community. 'Waiting for a stronger record' sometimes means exactly that — a specific eEVAL cycle or a named assignment that is realistically 18 months away will measurably improve the profile. But 'waiting' that is really 'avoiding the conversation with the LCPO' is a different calculation. Sit down with your LCPO and get an honest read on where the record stands relative to the competitive range for your NEC community.…
Q06What's next after E6 for a AW (Naval Aircrewman) in the Navy?
The anchor changes the job more than any other promotion in the rating.
Q07What manuals and regulations does a E6 AW need to know cold?
OPNAVINST 3710.7 (current series) — NATOPS General Flight Instructions; full fluency including the mishap-reporting chain of authority, physiological episode reporting, and the Aviation Safety Program chapters you now brief to the safety officer.; NWP 3-50.1 — Naval SAR Manual; you own the section's SAR procedural currency and you are the crewman the commanding officer calls to explain the rescue at the next CO's call.; Community TACMAN for your platform — AWF, AWO, AWR,…

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