It was a relatively minor uniform change, not nearly as sweeping as the elimination of the fore and aft cap and epaulettes for officers and the introduction of the short-lived gray working uniform by Fleet Admiral Ernest J. King during World War II. However, for a select group of naval aviation personnel, the 24 August 1968, change to the Navy’s Uniform Regulations, provided a new identity. On this date, those Navy and Marine Corps personnel designated as naval flight officers (NFO) were authorized to pin on a new set of wings of gold, one more reflective of their important place in naval aviation.
The path to this change began in 1922, when Rear Admiral William A. Moffett, the first chief of the newly created Bureau of Aeronautics, completed a flight training program at Naval Air Station (NAS) Pensacola, Florida, and was designated a naval aviation observer (NAO). Not qualified to pilot an aircraft, NAOs nevertheless received training in such subjects as aerial navigation, meteorology, communications, aerial photography, gunnery, and bombing, with classroom work followed by practical experience on training flights. In comparison to those who received training as naval aviators, relatively few officers qualified as naval aviation observers. However, those that did tended to be senior in rank and age. Having demonstrated its value during World War I, naval aviation was here to stay in the 1920s, yet its ranks were filled primarily by officers of junior rank. The creation of the NAO designation afforded more senior officers who might be unable to qualify as naval aviators for medical reasons or otherwise the opportunity to hold aviation commands afloat and ashore.
To differentiate NAOs from naval aviators, a host of wing insignias were introduced during the program’s early years, the short-lived designs including a naval aviator wing with the shield replaced by an “O” and right wing removed. For a time, NAOs even wore naval aviator wings, only silver in color. Finally, in 1929, the Navy adopted a gold insignia with an anchor superimposed over an “O” flanked on both sides by wings. These remained in use through World War II, with only minor modification, though a decision in 1945 to divide naval aviation observers into categories (navigation, radar, tactical, and aerology) added additional wing designs.
World War II proved a watershed event not only for its sweeping battles, but for the technological advances it spawned. Nowhere was this more apparent than in aviation, the postwar years witnessing the development of jet aircraft, air-to-air missiles, and increasingly sophisticated radar and navigation systems. Operating them necessitated assistance for the pilot, and in 1960 NAOs began to assume increasingly important roles. This was recognized five years later by the adoption of a new name for these individuals—naval flight officer, their specialties ranging from service as bombardiers-navigators to electronic countermeasures officers to radar intercept officers.
By 1967, with NFOs hunting Soviet submarines in the world’s oceans and dueling MiGs over North Vietnam, there was a grassroots effort to adopt a new wing insignia befitting their heightened role as warfighters, the observer wings reflecting a time when their wearers were not as actively involved in operating systems on the aircraft. The end result was the 24 August 1968, adoption of what was described as a “gold color metal pin; winged, with a central device consisting of a shield superimposed on a set of small, crossed, fouled anchors.
During the past three decades, thousands of men and women have qualified as NFOs, some reaching the highest echelons of the Navy’s command structure. Today, they are the “back seaters” in F/A-18F Super Hornets and man consoles in the fuselages of the E-2 Hawkeye and P-3 Orion, monitoring the battle spaces of the twenty-first century. For many of them, the journey actually begins in Pensacola, just as it did for Admiral Moffett, where many an afternoon applause and cheers resound throughout the building, signaling that a new class has received their NFO wings during a ceremony in the museum’s Blue Angel Atrium.
Pictured on this page, the naval flight officer wings that were made a part of the Navy's Uniform Regulations on 24 August 1968 contrast with the naval aviation observer wings approved in 1929. Lieutenant (junior grade) Shane Tanner, a naval flight officer in Carrier Airborner Early Warning Squadron (VAW) 121, at work on board an E-2C Hawkeye during a combat mission over Afghanistan in 2002. (U.S. Navy Photograph by PH1 Jim Hampshire)