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:
“My impression about the Panama Canal is that the great revolution it is going to introduce in the trade of the world is in the trade between the east and the west coast of the United States.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)
“And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”
—Bible: New Testament, Philippians 4:7.
“It is marvelous indeed to watch on television the rings of Saturn close; and to speculate on what we may yet find at galaxy’s edge. But in the process, we have lost the human element; not to mention the high hope of those quaint days when flight would create “one world.” Instead of one world, we have “star wars,” and a future in which dumb dented human toys will drift mindlessly about the cosmos long after our small planet’s dead.”
—Gore Vidal (b. 1925)
“When Prince William [later King William IV] was at Cork in 1787, an old officer ... dined with him, and happened to say he had been forty years in the service. The Prince with a sneer asked what he had learnt in those forty years. The old gentleman justly offended, said, “Sir, I have learnt, when I am no longer fit to fight, to make as good a retreat as I can” —and walked out of the room.”
—Horace Walpole (1717–1797)
“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)