Officer Candidate School (U.S. Navy) - AOCS

AOCS

The Navy previously operated two officer candidate programs, OCS at Newport, Rhode Island and Aviation Officer Candidate School (AOCS) at NAS Pensacola, Florida. AOCS trained prospective Naval Aviators, Naval Flight Officers, Aviation Maintenance Duty Officers, and Air Intelligence Officers, while OCS trained all other Naval Officer communities (i.e., Surface Warfare Officers, Submarine Warfare Officers, Special Warfare (SEAL) Officers, General Line Officers, Supply Corps officers, etc.).

AOCS contained two parallel track programs, the traditional AOCS for college and university graduates that operated on a year-round basis, and the Aviation Reserve Officer Candidate (AVROC) program during the summer and early fall. AVROC, similar in nature to the Marine Corps' Platoon Leaders Class (PLC) program, split the AOCS curriculum in half, with college and university juniors attending the first half during the summer between their junior and senior years, then returning the following summer after college graduation to complete the second half of the program and receive their commissions. During the summer months, AVROC classes would typically enter every other week, with their graduations on alternating weeks from AOCS graduations. For AVROCs, the advantage of their program was that their Pay Entry Base Date (PEBD) was adjusted to the day they signed up for the AVROC program, typically two to three years before their commissioning. As a result, when they were finally commissioned, they received a higher base pay rate reflecting two to three years of service (i.e., O-1 over 2 years, O-1 over 3 years) versus their traditional non-prior service AOCS counterparts (i.e., O-1 less than 2 years). AVROCs were otherwise indiscernible from traditional AOCs.

Another subset of the traditional AOCs was the Naval Aviation Cadet (NavCad) Program. NavCads, who had some college, but typically lacked a bachelor's degree, attended their entire flight school program as non-commissioned candidates and did not receive their commissions as Ensigns until they completed flight training and received their wings as Naval Aviators. These former NavCads, commissioned officers without bachelor's degrees, would complete their initial fleet squadron tour and would then be sent to the Naval Postgraduate School or a civilian college or university as Lieutenants on their first shore duty assignment in order to finish their baccalaureate degree. AOCS stopped taking NavCad civilian and enlisted candidates in 1968. The NavCad program was reintroduced in early 1986 due to increased fleet requirements for pilots (Naval Flight Officers were not procurred via NavCad), but was eliminated in October 1993 as a result of the end of the Cold War and resultant manpower reductions in the active duty naval officer ranks.

The original US Navy OCS at Newport, Rhode Island began operation in 1951 and was closed down in April 1994 when the programs were merged into a single AOCS at NAS Pensacola. However, in September 2007 the U.S. Navy Aviation Officer Candidate School (AOCS) in Pensacola, Florida was closed after graduation of the last AOCS candidates there. The AOCS training program was moved to Newport, Rhode Island by direction of the Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) Commission of 2005. A difference in class numbering between OCS and AOCS was that AOCS classes were numbered by graduation date in the calendar year vice fiscal (for example, the first class to graduate in January would be Class 01-YY as opposed to the first class in the fiscal year (October)).

In AOCS, all basic military training was administered by enlisted drill instructors from the United States Marine Corps, a holdover from World War II and the 1950s when AOCS and NavCad graduates were still given an option of a commission as an Ensign in the Navy or a 2nd Lieutenant in the Marine Corps. This facet of the training (origin of the slogan "Navy owned, Marine Corps trained") at AOCS in Pensacola was considered a point of pride and mark of distinction by the graduates of AOCS that separated themselves from the graduates of OCS in Newport, as well as NROTC and U.S. Naval Academy graduates. When the single AOCS was established in Newport, RI, the program retained both the Marine DIs of AOCS and the US Navy CPOs of Newport. Newport's AOCS now has both.