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AWE7

Naval Aircrewman

E-7 (Sergeant First Class) · Navy

E1–E3E-4E-5E-6E-7E8–E9
HEADS UP

The anchor changed everything. You are not a very senior petty officer with a title upgrade — you are a member of the goat locker, which means the wardroom defers to you on enlisted execution and the deckplate reads your standard as the command's standard. In a flying community, that standard extends to the flight line, the pool, and the survival-equipment locker — not just the quarters formation. Personal currency is your first leadership statement at AWC.

The Honest MOS Read
The promotion from AW1 to AWC is the most consequential transition in the naval aircrewman rating — bigger than every prior promotion combined, because it changes not just your job description but your authority structure, your peer group, and the range of influence the Navy holds you accountable for. As LCPO of an aircrew department you run enlisted execution from the hangar floor to the goat locker, and the wardroom expects those two domains to speak with one voice when the commanding officer asks a question about crewman readiness. In a fleet MH-60R or P-8A squadron the LCPO billet means you own the AW section's training program, eEVAL cycle, NEC pipeline, Rescue Swimmer accession program, survival-equipment accountability, and safety culture — and you represent all of it at command-level sync and at wing-level staneval visits as the senior enlisted aircrew voice. You write fewer eEVALs than you did as AW1, but the ones you write are the ones that pick the AW1 slate for the next Chief board: your evaluation of who is Chief-competitive among your AW1s is one of the most consequential things you do for the community every year. Personal currency is where AWCs occasionally make the promotion mistake of treating the anchor as a graduation certificate. It is not. Your NATOPS checkride expiry date, your swim qual date, your SERE Level C recurrency — these are all visible to every crewman in your section, and in a flying community the deckplate cross-references the Chief's currency card against his brief at quarters with the same scrutiny it applies to the AW3 who missed a swim window. A Chief who lets his quals lapse while briefing section currency is a Chief who has already lost the standard before the commanding officer hears about it. The CPO 365 transition cycle and the Senior Enlisted Academy pipeline are the formal professional development markers at AWC — CPO 365 is the first-year mess integration, and SEA at the Naval War College Newport is the senior-enlisted PME track that positions you for the AWCS slate and the command-level senior enlisted advisor billets. Do not treat SEA as a checkbox; the coursework and the peer cohort at SEA are the professional network you will operate out of for the rest of your career. Wing standardization posture is the AWC's external credibility marker. The stan-eval team that walks into your squadron and finds no senior-enlisted-attributable currency findings during your tenure is the team that reports up the chain to the TYCOM that your squadron's aircrew section is run correctly. That report lives in your service record and is read at the AWCS board the same way a clean command climate survey lives in a senior enlisted advisor's record.
Career Arc
  • 01Month 1-6 as AWC: CPO 365 integration — the mess initiation cycle is the formal cultural entry; the deckplate transition is faster and is being watched by every AW1 you used to supervise.
  • 02Year 1-2: first full LCPO eval cycle — eEVAL profile for the AW1 slate reads as your first Chief-level judgment about human performance; the LCPO who picks wrong at the first wardroom board hears about it at the next one.
  • 03Year 1-3: wing standardization posture — first wing NATOPS stan-eval visit under your watch; zero senior-enlisted-attributable findings is the standard, not the stretch goal.
  • 04Year 2-4: SEA application and selection — Senior Enlisted Academy at Naval War College Newport is the AWC-level PME marker; competitive application package includes CO endorsement and LCPO recommendation.
  • 05Year 3-5: AWCS slate — the Senior Chief board reads the same things the Chief board read: eEVAL profile, named real-world mission execution, NEC currency, community reputation, and now the section's pipeline output under your leadership.
  • 06Continuous: personal flying-status currency maintained — NATOPS checkride, swim quals, SERE, PRT — because in a flying community, the Chief who does not fly is not fully a Chief in the community's eyes.
  • 07Year 4-6: command master chief slate consideration or wing-level senior enlisted advisor billet — the AWCS who has SEA complete and a wing-level reputation is in the conversation.
Common Screwups
  • ×Letting personal NATOPS currency lapse while running a department-level aircrew readiness brief. In a flying community this is not a paperwork error — it is a professional credibility event that the deckplate publicizes before the ops officer knows about it. Recovery requires more than a catch-up checkride.
  • ×Chief-level financial mismanagement — collections, garnishment, command financial specialist report. Security clearance review triggers immediately and flight status follows; the aviation community's clearance requirements make this a career-ending combination for an LCPO whose billet requires active flight status.
  • ×Fraternization with a junior crewman. The goat locker handles it first — once it is in the mess, it is in the community. The wardroom does not adjudicate privately what the mess has already evaluated publicly.
  • ×OPSEC breach — senior-chief-level OPSEC incidents in naval aviation carry compound consequences: flight status, security clearance, command climate impact, and the specific attention of NCIS in a community where the platforms are high-value collection targets.
  • ×Falsifying NATOPS, swim qualification, or survival-equipment serviceability records. The aviation safety program is the most audited administrative record in the aviation community — NAVAIR, the wing stan-eval team, and the NATOPS program office all compare source records. A falsification at the LCPO level triggers a command investigation, not a correction action.

A Day in the Life

  • 0500Swim PT — AWC who does not swim sends a message to the AW3s before quarters. On run days: 3 miles with the section, not 3 miles alone. The formation watches whether the Chief runs with them.
  • 0615Mess check — goat locker sync with the CMC and other chiefs before morning quarters. Section-level issues that need mess-level awareness get named here, not at the wardroom.
  • 0700Section muster — LCPO muster. Accountability, uniform, training plan. Anything that surfaced in the overnight that changes the day's plan gets addressed before the brief starts, not during it.
  • 0730Mission brief with aircraft commander and flight crew. LCPO attends or sends the senior AW1 — and knows the difference between which sorties need LCPO presence at brief and which do not.
  • 0800-0830Pre-flight or pre-flight oversight — on flight days, LCPO walks the pre-flight with the AW1 LPO at least twice a week. The Chief who never appears on the flight line before a sortie has ceded that ground to the AW1.
  • 0900-1200Flight sorties (when LCPO is on the schedule) or administrative block. ATP documentation, eEVAL drafts, pipeline packet reviews, NEC source-rating NAVADMIN pull for the current cycle, MILPERSMAN review for any open personnel actions.
  • 1200-1300Post-flight debrief (if flying) or midday sync with AW1 LPOs — 20 minutes, standing, covering the afternoon's training events and any curriculum changes.
  • 1300-1430Department head sync or maintenance-ops-safety sync. LCPO attends as the senior enlisted aircrew voice. The brief is pre-built; the Chief does not brief from notes in this meeting.
  • 1430-1530Pipeline mentoring time — scheduled 1:1 with an AW1 or AW2 on their development plan. Not ad hoc; not hallway conversation. Documented in the individual development plan folder.
  • 1530-1630Equipment locker walk and ATP tracker reconciliation against squadron training database. Physical inspection, signed log. This is the one daily action that cannot be delegated permanently.
  • 1630-1700Goat locker EOD — debrief with the CMC on anything from the day that needs mess awareness. Pass anything from the section that rises above the AW1 level before secure.
  • 1700Secure section. Verify next day flight schedule against LCPO tracker. Identify any tomorrow-morning currency issues that need a call to the flight scheduler before 0700.

Weekly Cadence

Monday through Wednesday is operational execution — flight schedule heavy, real-world alert posture if the squadron is on the SAR rotation, LCPO present on the flight line for the difficult sorties. The LCPO whose week is entirely administrative during the operational days has already told the section where the priority is. Operational presence does not mean flying every sortie; it means the section sees the LCPO at the flight line briefing, the pre-flight, and the post-flight debrief at least twice during the operational window. Thursday is the administrative anchor — ATP documentation current, eEVAL drafts advancing, development plan check-ins, pipeline packet status updated. This is the day the LCPO's relationship with the AW1 LPOs is most visible: either the LCPO is pulling the section's administrative weight through direct engagement, or the AW1s are managing upward and building the LCPO's record for him. The second model produces a Chief board look that reads thinner than the eEVAL profile suggests. Friday is the readiness accounting day. Currency tracker reconciled against the squadron database, all outstanding sign-offs completed or scheduled, any weekend alert crew verified against current quals. The LCPO who ends Friday with a clean tracker and no unresolved currency issues is the LCPO who has a predictable Monday. In a deployment work-up or surge cycle, this entire cadence compresses into whatever the ops officer posts — you run the section on the schedule, not the calendar, and you manage the administrative functions in the margins. The difference between a strong LCPO and a struggling one during surge is whether the tracker stays current when the pace doubles.

Key Skills — How to Drill Each

  1. 01
    Run an LCPO department of crewmen — flight schedule, training recurrency, emergency procedure evaluation cadence, survival-equipment accountability, NEC pipeline, discipline, family support — on a weekly cadence the ops officer and CO can predict.
    Establish the weekly rhythm in the first 30 days and defend it for the entire tour. The LCPO whose section cadence is unpredictable from week to week produces an ops officer who stops trusting the brief and a commanding officer who hears about currency gaps from the wing before they hear about them from you. Build the monthly training calendar against the ATP instruction, post it before the month starts, and hold the section to it with the same firmness you held your AW3s to the pre-flight checklist.
  2. 02
    Defend the department's aircrew NATOPS currency, swim and SERE qual status, survival-equipment serviceability, and safety program participation at command-level sync without your numbers being rewritten.
    Brief from one tracker, built by you, reconciled against the squadron training database weekly. The LCPO who shows up to command sync with different numbers than the ops officer's tracker has already lost the brief before the CO's first question. Resolve discrepancies before the meeting — if the squadron database and your tracker do not match, find out which one is wrong that morning, not in the room.
  3. 03
    Walk a real-world SAR case, ASW prosecution, AMCM sweep, or ISR mission debrief as the senior enlisted aircrew voice on scene — AAR is what the wing briefs to NAVCENT or COMASWFORPAC.
    Maintain enough personal currency to be the crewman who can fly the hardest sorties the squadron executes — not just to comply with flying-status requirements, but because the LCPO who has been in the hoist at 0200 in sea state 4 briefs the mission debrief differently than the one who has not been in the aircraft since last quarter. Personal operational credibility is the foundation the section's trust in your leadership stands on.
  4. 04
    Mentor four to six AW1s into Chief-board-competitive candidates; produce at least one Rescue Swimmer, NEC C-school, commissioning, or warrant accession per year from the section.
    Build an individual development plan for each AW1 in the section within 60 days of taking the LCPO billet. Sit down, read the record, identify where the gaps are relative to the Chief-board competitive range for the community NEC, and name the specific events — a named mission, a particular recurrency event, an eEVAL cycle — that will close those gaps. The LCPO who waits for the AW1 to come to him with a career question is the LCPO who loses the Chief-board window because the AW1 did not know the timeline.
  5. 05
    Operate as the senior enlisted aircrew voice during a deployment cycle, surge operation, or humanitarian response — including the call to wake the CO at 0200 when the aircrew readiness posture has actually shifted.
    Know the command's risk acceptance framework cold so you can make the judgment about when a readiness change rises to the level that the CO needs to know before the brief. The LCPO who pages the CO at 0200 because two crewmen are sick and a third's swim qual expired last week is the LCPO who has confused administrative imperfection with operational risk. The LCPO who does NOT page the CO when the SAR-alert crewman's survival equipment has an unresolved equipment discrepancy that the flight surgeon has not cleared has made a more consequential error.
  6. 06
    Translate wing-level NATOPS standardization, NAVAIR safety program, and CNATRA training policy into deckplate decisions the AW3s and AW2s rehearse without rewording the message.
    Read the wing stan-eval instruction and the NAVAIR safety program update before your section does — not at the same time. When the new policy drops, the deckplate should hear about it from the LCPO at quarters the next morning with a one-sentence explanation of what changes in the daily routine, not discover it themselves in the debrief after the stan-eval team flags it.

Manuals & References — What Chapters Matter

  • OPNAVINST 3710.7 (current series) — NATOPS General Flight and Operating Instructions.
    You are the reference at this tier. When the junior crewman has a policy question about physiological episode reporting, mishap reporting authority, or emergency procedure authority limits, the LCPO is where the question ends. Pull the current series revision date and verify it is the live version — NATOPS series instructions update without broadcast and a stale binder in the section library is a finding waiting to happen.
  • OPNAVINST 5102.1 (current series) — Naval Aviation Safety Program.
    The LCPO owns the command's aviation safety culture at the enlisted execution level — hazard reporting, near-miss culture, physiological episode reporting, mishap-prevention posture. The chapter on the Enlisted Safety Representative role and the chapter on command safety program requirements define your accountability directly. The NAVAIR safety program inspector will interview the LCPO as part of the command safety inspection; the LCPO who can walk through the section's HAZREP culture and near-miss data without notes is the one who passes.
  • NWP 3-50.1 — Naval Search and Rescue Manual.
    The tactical authority you advise the CO and ops officer from when the SAR planning question involves crew qualification levels, environmental limits, or survivor recovery technique selection. At LCPO level you are not just executing the procedures — you are the one who tells the CO whether the crew on the alert aircraft is qualified to fly the scenario the weather is about to present.
  • MILPERSMAN — Manual of the Judge Advocate General / Military Personnel Manual.
    Fluency in the articles governing enlisted personnel actions at AWC-level visibility: NJP, administrative separation, advancement, retention, and security clearance management. The LCPO who has to look up the MILPERSMAN while the XO is waiting for the answer is the LCPO who cedes the conversation to the legal officer. Know the NJP process and the administrative separation criteria before you are in the room for the first high-visibility case.
  • CPO 365 guidance and Senior Enlisted Academy reading list (Naval War College Newport).
    CPO 365 is the first-year transition — the formal process for integrating into the Chief's Mess with the expectations and standards the mess holds. SEA is the advanced PME marker; the reading list at SEA is doctrine and leadership theory at a level of depth the JOB-career professional development tracks do not reach. Both are directly evaluated at the AWCS board.
  • Wing-level and TYCOM aircrew standardization instructions.
    The policy layer above your squadron's ATP; the LCPO who has read the wing stan-eval instruction before the wing team arrives knows exactly what the team is looking for. Quote the instruction, do not summarize it — the stan-eval chief evaluating your section will know whether your ATP is built to the wing standard or to a squadron-modified version that predates the last instruction revision.

Standards — How to Hit Each

  • CPO 365 / Chief's Mess transition complete; standing as a Chief in the mess at the deckplate level — not a Chief in title alone — visible on the flight line.
    The CPO 365 cycle is a calendar-driven institutional process; the deckplate transition is faster, less structured, and more important. In a flying community, the Chief's authority on the flight line is the first observable signal — the first time you walk a pre-flight inspection at the same standard you held the AW3s to is the first time the section decides whether the anchor changed the person or just the uniform.
  • Department-level aircrew NATOPS currency, survival-equipment serviceability, and wing standardization evaluation results defensible at the CO and type-wing level every cycle.
    The test of this standard is the wing stan-eval visit. Before the team arrives, brief the section: 'the standard we run every week is the standard we are briefing today.' If the answer to that statement is 'mostly,' the section is not ready. The LCPO who has to do a 72-hour prep cycle before a stan-eval visit is the LCPO whose section runs to a lower standard in the interim periods — and the wing team has been doing this long enough to know which squadrons that describes.
  • Personal flying-status currency maintained — NATOPS checkride, swim quals, SERE Level C, PRT — verified against the same board the section is tracked on.
    Post your own currency expiry dates on the section's ATP tracker. The LCPO whose personal currency is visible to the section alongside the AW3's creates accountability in both directions. When the AW3's swim qual expires, the section already knows the LCPO's next swim date — and when the LCPO shows up to the pool, the AW3 notices.
  • Pipeline producing 1+ NEC C-school selectee, Rescue Swimmer selectee, commissioning, or warrant accession per year — and the commanding officer can name them.
    The CO should be able to name the pipeline candidates from your section without asking you first. That means the CO knows about the candidate, knows the timeline, and knows what the next milestone is — because you briefed it at command-level sync, not because you mentioned it informally in the p-way. The LCPO who produces pipeline output but keeps it inside the section-level records has produced something the command cannot credit.
  • Zero Chief-level integrity incidents — fraternization, financial, OPSEC, NATOPS falsification, flying-status fraud. One ends the career permanently in a community this small.
    The standard here is not 'avoid incidents' — it is 'build the section culture where the junior crewman does not feel the need to falsify a qual because the LCPO is going to pull him from the flight schedule.' The LCPO whose section has no integrity incidents is usually the LCPO whose section had honest conversations about currency, physical standards, and qualification timelines before the pressure point arrived.

Technical Mistakes — Concrete Consequences

  • Mistaking the goat locker for a private club rather than a working leadership platform.
    The aircrew section reads the Chief's mess as off-mission inside the same deployment cycle. The crewman who watches the LCPO disappear into the mess during maintenance surge does not ask for the Chief's help the next time the problem rises to that level. The commanding officer hears about section execution gaps that the LCPO was never brought in on.
  • Letting personal NATOPS currency, swim quals, or PRT lapse because 'I am a Chief now.'
    The flight schedule does not read rank; it reads qualification dates. When the AW3 is pulled for a lapsed swim qual and the Chief has not been in the pool since last quarter, the standard collapses without a disciplinary action required — the section does it quietly. The next currency cycle will show it in the aggregate data.
  • Letting an AW1 LPO run a bad section because he is 'your guy' or because you are protecting a relationship at the cost of the section's standard.
    The commanding officer and the wing standardization team see the currency gaps first and the Chief's evaluation of that LPO is read against them. The LCPO who is known in the community for carrying underperforming AW1s is the LCPO whose AW1 pipeline output numbers are questioned at the wardroom when the slate comes out.
  • Going public with disagreement with the ops officer, the safety officer, or the CO in a format the deckplate can read.
    The disagreement happens in the office; you walk out aligned. The deckplate reads the Chief's posture — if the Chief exits a closed-door meeting looking conflicted, the section spends the next 72 hours wondering which direction to face. The goat locker enforces the principle before the wardroom asks because the mess sees the damage first.
  • Treating the Rescue Swimmer, commissioning, or NEC mentoring as a checkbox rather than a genuine long-horizon investment in the community.
    The crewman who pursues the Rescue Swimmer pipeline on the LCPO's endorsement and discovers the physical standard was never achievable for him remembers that conversation for the rest of his career — and so does the community. The aviation world is small enough that an LCPO's pipeline advice reputation travels across squadrons before the next PCS cycle.

Career Decisions at This Rank

  • Senior Chief (AWCS) board — when is the record ready and what does 'ready' actually mean?
    The AWCS board reads a Chief's record the same way the Chief board read the First Class's record — eEVAL profile trajectory, NEC currency, named real-world mission execution, and pipeline output under your LCPO leadership. The specific competitive factor at AWCS is the pipeline output number: how many AW1s did you produce as LCPO, how many selected Chief, and how many NEC, Rescue Swimmer, and commissioning accessions came from your section. That is the record that distinguishes AWCS-competitive AWCs from the AWCs who were strong personally but did not build the bench. Sit down with your CMC before your third year as AWC and get an honest read on whether the record is competitive now or in the next cycle.
  • Senior Enlisted Academy — now or after the next command tour?
    SEA at Naval War College Newport is the AWC-level PME marker for the AWCS board. Apply for the first available cycle after your CPO 365 year. The AWC who delays SEA until after the next command tour is the AWC whose AWCS board record shows an unexplained gap in professional military education — the board will not ask why, it will just read the record. The coursework and the peer cohort at SEA are also genuinely valuable; the interpersonal network with senior enlisted leaders across the joint community is the professional environment you operate in for the next decade.
  • Command Master Chief pathway versus senior enlisted advisor at wing or TYCOM staff?
    Both paths lead to AWCM-competitive records, but they produce different post-Navy profiles. The CMC path maximizes command-level influence and the specific Navy institutional credential of having served as the senior enlisted leader of an operational command. The wing or TYCOM staff path maximizes policy influence, community-wide standardization credibility, and the joint exposure that AWCM board records increasingly reflect. If you have the personal preference and the community reputation to compete for CMC, pursue it; if the wing standardization or TYCOM staff billet is available first and the CMC slate is uncertain, take the staff billet and build the record from there.
  • Post-Navy market preparation — when does the planning conversation start?
    The AWC who plans the post-Navy market at 24 months out has the time to build the civilian credential bridge — FAA-recognized crewman documentation, specific NEC-coded community contacts in the defense contractor airborne ISR world, networking with commercial SAR operators and federal aviation security agencies before the terminal leave date arrives. The AWC who starts at 6 months out is negotiating from a weaker position. This is not a retirement conversation — it is a career-completion planning conversation that runs in parallel with the active-duty job for two years.

How the Seat Varies by Unit Type

  • Fleet MH-60R HSM squadron (carrier strike group-integrated)
    Highest operational tempo for the AWC LCPO. Deployment cycles attached to a carrier strike group or independent ASW tasking — real-world ASW prosecutions, SAR cases at sea, alert-crew rotations while the squadron is embarked on combatants. The LCPO billet here builds the most operationally credible Chief-board record; the tradeoff is pace and the impact on family readiness that the AWC now owns as an LCPO responsibility rather than just a personal one.
  • Fleet P-8A VP squadron (land-based maritime patrol)
    Larger section with more diverse NEC backgrounds — AWF and AWR are both represented in most VP squadrons. Operational detachments to deployed locations worldwide rather than a traditional ship-based deployment cycle. More deliberate mission planning cycles and more ISR pattern-of-life work than rotary-wing; the real-world SAR execution rate is lower. The LCPO manages the complexity of multiple communities with different NEC qualifications and different recurrency requirements under one ATP.
  • Fleet Replacement Squadron (FRS) senior enlisted instructor billet
    The FRS LCPO is the senior enlisted presence in the organization that trains every AW entering the fleet. The community-wide institutional influence is higher here than in a fleet squadron billet. The operational flight record is not growing during this tour — the prior record has to carry the mission credibility. Strong pipeline output for AWCS consideration; the FRS community network is the most complete in the rating.
  • Wing or TYCOM aircrew standardization cell
    AWC at the wing standardization level evaluates the performance of LCPO-level chiefs and runs the stan-eval visits that define community standards. The authority at this billet is community-wide rather than squadron-wide. The AWCS board reads a wing-level standardization billet as evidence of cross-community reputation — the AWC who gets this billet is being evaluated by the wing commander, not just the squadron CO.
  • Joint aviation unit (Army, USMC, USAF joint operations)
    The Navy AWC in a joint aviation billet operates outside the goat locker structure that defines the Navy Chief's Mess. The professional adjustment — a Navy Chief without the infrastructure of a Chief's Mess, in an organization where the equivalent senior enlisted leaders operate under a different culture — is real and is best understood as a leadership environment rather than a deficit. Joint credibility is an AWCM-board advantage; the adjustment is a first-year investment.

What Good Looks Like at This Rank

The good AWC LCPO is the Chief the commanding officer quotes by name at the type-wing command conference — not because the CO was promoting the Chief's career but because the specific operational outcome the CO was describing had the Chief's name on the debrief. The real-world SAR case, the ASW prosecution, the AMCM sweep that the wing briefed as a tactics development example — the LCPO whose section produced it gets named. His section runs the same standard on a Tuesday at 0700 in the third month of a work-up cycle as it does on the day the wing stan-eval team walks in. The ATP tracker is clean, the survival equipment serviceability log is signed by the LCPO personally, and the AW1 he is mentoring for the Chief board has a development plan that the LCPO can brief to the XO without notes. The Rescue Swimmer candidate he identified 18 months ago either selected or was honestly counseled to a different path — the result matters less than the process being genuine. When the LCPO briefs aircrew readiness at command sync, the ops officer does not look for the safety officer to cross-check the numbers. That trust is built one accurate brief at a time over two years — it is not issued with the anchors. The Chief who has that trust at the end of a tour is the Chief who is being discussed for the AWCS slate before the convening order is published.

Preview — The Next Rank

Senior Chief Naval Aircrewman is the rank where community-wide influence becomes your primary job. As AWCS you move from running a squadron-level section to shaping the talent management and training policy decisions that affect every AW in the wing or the community — and the AWCM slate above you is watching whether you use that influence to build the community or to manage your own record. The second major change is the span of consequence for your eEVAL ratings. As AWC LCPO you picked the AW1 and AWC slates from your section. As AWCS you sit on board panels and command slate reviews where your judgment about who is Chief-competitive influences the careers of people you have never directly supervised. That judgment is held to a standard of fairness and confidentiality the mess enforces before the convening authority asks, and a Senior Chief who is known for parochial or self-interested slate recommendations earns a reputation that travels faster than any eEVAL the commanding officer writes. The post-Navy conversation becomes more urgent and more concrete at AWCS. You are within realistic distance of the 20-year mark, the civilian aviation and defense contractor markets have a different conversation with a Senior Chief Naval Aircrewman than they do with a Chief, and the decision about whether to pursue AWCM is a legitimate career calculation rather than an automatic continuation. Start the transition planning at AWCS, not at terminal leave.
FAQ

AW E7 — Frequently Asked Questions

Q01What does a E7 AW (Naval Aircrewman) actually do?
The job changes more between AW1 and AWC than at any other promotion in this rate.
Q02What's the most important thing to know as a E7 AW?
The anchor changed everything.
Q03What does a typical day look like for a E7 AW?
Time-blocked day at the E7 AW rank tier: 0500 Swim PT — AWC who does not swim sends a message to the AW3s before quarters. On run days: 3 miles with the section, not 3 miles alone. The formation watches whether the Chief runs with them, 0615 Mess check — goat locker sync with the CMC and other chiefs before morning quarters. Section-level issues that need mess-level awareness get named here, not at the wardroom, 0700 Section muster — LCPO muster. Accountability, uniform, training plan. Anything that surfaced in the overnight that changes the day's plan gets addressed before the brief starts,…
Q04What mistakes get E7 AW soldiers fired or relieved?
Letting personal NATOPS currency lapse while running a department-level aircrew readiness brief. In a flying community this is not a paperwork error — it is a professional credibility event that the deckplate publicizes before the ops officer knows about it. Recovery requires more than a catch-up checkride; Chief-level financial mismanagement — collections, garnishment, command financial specialist report. Security clearance review triggers immediately and flight status follows;…
Q05What career decisions matter most at the E7 AW rank tier?
Senior Chief (AWCS) board — when is the record ready and what does 'ready' actually mean? — The AWCS board reads a Chief's record the same way the Chief board read the First Class's record — eEVAL profile trajectory, NEC currency, named real-world mission execution, and pipeline output under your LCPO leadership. The specific competitive factor at AWCS is the pipeline output number: how many AW1s did you produce as LCPO, how many selected Chief, and how many NEC, Rescue Swimmer, and commissioning accessions came from your section.…
Q06What's next after E7 for a AW (Naval Aircrewman) in the Navy?
Senior Chief Naval Aircrewman is the rank where community-wide influence becomes your primary job.
Q07What manuals and regulations does a E7 AW need to know cold?
OPNAVINST 3710.7 (current series) — NATOPS General Flight Instructions; you are the reference the junior crewmen come to with the policy question, not the person who looks it up at the brief.; OPNAVINST 5102.1 (current series) — Naval Aviation Safety Program; you own the section's hazard reporting, near-miss culture, and mishap-prevention posture.; NWP 3-50.1 — Naval SAR Manual; you advise the commanding officer and the ops officer on SAR tactical employment and crew qualification levels.

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