The Coast Guard Flight Officer Badge is a military badge of the United States Coast Guard that was issued until approximately 1988.
A Naval Aviation Observer insignia for Coast Guard personnel was first created in 1920 as a means of recognizing Coast Guard co-pilots and aircraft in-flight support personnel. The badge was the equivalent of the Naval Aviation Observer insignia for USN and USMC personnel. During the Second World War, issuance of the Coast Guard Aviation Observer insignia reached its peak, and the decoration was awarded throughout the Korean War. In the late 1960s, the Coast Guard Aviation Observer insignia began to be phased out due to a change in the structure of aviation training and the elimination of the title of Coast Guard Aviation Observers from approved aviation billets.
In the mid-1980s, the Coast Guard Flight Officer insignia was briefly reinstated in the Coast Guard when the service took temporary custody of two E-2C Hawkeye aircraft from the U.S. Navy. This was part of an initiative to stand up a larger complement of Coast Guard E-2C aircraft, primarily in the counternarcotics and drug interdiction roles, augmented by Coast Guard HC-130s that would also be equipped with similar radar systems. The Coast Guard Flight Officer insignia is similar to the Naval Flight Officer insignia, minus the crossed sea anchors. The service recruited E-2C NFOs from the Navy, recommisioning them in the Coast Guard, as well as selecting a number of serving Coast Guard officers for NFO training.
A fatal Coast Guard E-2C aircraft mishap in the early 1990s spelled the end of the Coast Guard E-2C and enhanced HC-130 programs and the service transferred the remaining E-2C aircraft back to the Navy.
In the 21st-century Coast Guard, the Coast Guard Flight Officer Badge has been declared obsolete, although it is still authorized for wear on Coast Guard uniforms.
Famous quotes containing the words coast, guard, flight, officer and/or badge:
“Too many Broadway actors in motion pictures lost their grip on success—had a feeling that none of it had ever happened on that sun-drenched coast, that the coast itself did not exist, there was no California. It had dropped away like a hasty dream and nothing could ever have been like the things they thought they remembered.”
—Mae West (1892–1980)
“Those who guard their mouths preserve their lives; those who open wide their lips come to ruin.”
—Bible: Hebrew, Proverbs 13:3.
“it pleaseth me when I see through the meadows
The tents and pavilions set up, and great joy have I
When I see o’er the campana knights armed and horses arrayed.
And it pleaseth me when the scouts set in flight the folk with
their goods;
And it pleaseth me when I see coming together after them an host of
armed men.”
—Bertrans De Born (fl. 12th century)
“Oh he’s doing fine, Michael. Nevertheless, he’s an officer and a gentleman, and that’s no job for a gentleman.”
—Frank S. Nugent (1908–1965)
“Just across the Green from the post office is the county jail, seldom occupied except by some backwoodsman who has been intemperate; the courthouse is under the same roof. The dog warden usually basks in the sunlight near the harness store or the post office, his golden badge polished bright.”
—Administration for the State of Con, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)