Star Army Flight Control Officer

In the symphony of moving parts that is flight deck operations, a Flight Control Officer is a conductor. A FCO is occupation in the Star Army of Yamatai is expected to oversee a variety of skill sets and MOSs to achieve their mission. This is a supervisory role. While they aren’t expected to be a pilot or a technician or damage control specialist, they are expected to be familiar with the duties, procedures, and skill sets of the personnel they supervise. Flight Control Officers aren’t stationed on every ship. Instead, they are more likely to be found on a ship that is expecting to support more complex small craft operations. On smaller ships, some of the duties normally handled by an FCO are often handled by a senior NCO technician or supply specialist. While the majority of Star Army small craft are ship based, Flight Control Officers are also an important part of ground based flight operations.

The occupational uniform color for Flight Control Officer is Starship Ops Gray and the MOS code is 09D.

Since at least YE 32 the position of Flight Control Officer (lovingly named Deck Boss) was held by a technician officer with a degree of seniority. One notable example is Taii Motoyoshi-Asano Namika former Deck Boss on the YSS Densetsu. It wasn’t until YE 42 when the occupation was formalized with new classes of purpose trained FCOs expected to graduate by mid YE 44.

Any commissioned officer can choose to go to training to become a Flight Control Officer. Technicians and Pilots often have leg up due to their relevant background skills. Outside of special circumstances, every FCO begins their career as a Deck Officer.

The minimum rank for this occupation is Shoi and the maximum rank is Taisa.

Flight Control Officers can be broken into three categories based on rank and breadth of responsibility. A Deck Officer who directly supervises flight deck activities, a Tower Officer who oversees Deck Officers and aircrews and coordinates with the bridge, and the Air Boss (formally known as Chief Flight Control Officer) who oversees the flight operations for an entire carrier or flotilla of smaller ships. An FCO is expected to be able to handle some more senior or junior tasks from time to time depending on the size of their ship. For example, a Deck Officer on a smaller vessel might find themselves handling supervisory duties similar to a Tower Officer. A Deck Officer supervises a deck crew consisting primarily of enlisted technicians, armorers, and supply specialists. On larger ships, the crew often also includes EMS personnel and deck medics. These crews are organized into teams responsible for: launch and recovery, ordnance handling, maintenance and repairs, fueling, quality assurance, and incident response.

Larger carrier focused ships such as a Heitan-Class (1B) Carrier or a Yamato-Class Flagship are often home to entire teams of FCOs supervising large deck crews. A smaller ship such as a Irim-class Heavy Gunship might have a single FCO supported by a handful of techs and a supply specialist.

Generally between the ranks of Shoi and Taii these are entry level FCOs. They have the most hands on job. A Deck Officer’s chief responsibility is ensuring that vehicles launching from the hangar are properly maintained, fueled, and equipped for the mission at hand. Any vehicle that is a guest in their hangar is also under their area of responsibility. They make sure vehicles are clear for launch and that the landing spaces are clear and free of hazards or personnel. They oversee the use of systems such as the Ke-A1-R4200 Vehicle Subspace Deployment System in order to deploy crafts. Additionally they handle emergency recovery procedures utilizing tools such as the KFY Graviton Beam Projector. On larger ships and instillations, individual Deck Officers will oversee a specific deck team or group of deck teams.

Whether or not the vessel has an actual control tower, the Tower Officer’s job is to oversee Deck Officers and Air Traffic Controllers as well as coordinate efforts between the flight deck, the bridge, and flight crews on their way to and from missions. One of their primary responsibilities is ensuring deconfliction between the various small crafts, mecha, and power armor suits in the ship’s vicinity. The most senior Tower Officer is the ultimate authority in the hangar. Their job is to ensure the continued safety and security of flight deck operations. They have the authority to lock down any hangar or docking ring under their command. This order can only be rescinded by the captain or an Air Boss. Similarly, they have the authority to shut down hangar operations (or sections of the hangar) in situations where continued operation would become unsafe and cause destruction of equipment, injury, or loss of life. In these situations, their job is to immediately organize the Deck Crew towards the goal of rectifying the safety issue. Tower Officers are generally between the rank of Chui and Shosa.

Colloquially an Air Boss is the most senior FCO on a vessel. In these situations, a Chui serving as the senior (or only) FCO on a smaller vessel like a Plumeria-class gunship with a deck extension might find themselves called an Air Boss. In most cases a the Air Boss is a Taii at the minimum, but the Air Boss on a flag ship or on the lead ship of a carrier group might be as highly ranked as a Taisa. The Air Boss coordinates between multiple fighter or mech squadrons, as well as other small crafts and the deck crews that handle, launch, and recover them. The Air Boss oversees multiple Tower Officers on their ship or across several ships working in concert. The Air Boss is not responsible for tactical decisions concerning where and how vehicles and equipment are employed. Instead, their main responsibility is ensuring that there are vehicles to be employed and which vehicles and crews are deployed. They are expected to advise the commanding officer of the ship, or instillation they serve on on matters related to the airspace wing. Prioritizing crews and vehicles with the highest readiness or most appropriate skills.

• Communication
  • An FCO is trained to use a variety of methods from hand signals to radio communications to relay clear concise instructions to air and deck crews. Understand and be able to use proper incident reporting procedures such as a (7-Line) Request For Medical Assistance.
• Knowledge (Deck Operations)
  • This includes familiarity with the duties of the supervised deck crew, the tools used for craft launch and recovery, safety procedures (such as conducting a FOD sweep), as well as damage control and hazmat practices.
• Leadership
  • FCO leadership training primarily focuses on coordination, problem solving, and quality assurance. An FCO regularly conducts operations requiring the cooperation of several different MOSs and departments. They need to be able to balance a variety of organizational objectives and personality types and make sobor decisions that prioritize crew safety and readiness. Finally, as a primarily supervisory and decision making position, a FCO needs to be comfortable checking over the work of their subordinates and issuing constructive guidance whether praise or criticism.

Players should familiarize themselves with Modern Carrier Operations (The FCO in Star Army parlance combines a variety of real world positions). Players should also familiarize themselves with the hangars and craft compliments on their assigned station and keep track of the condition of those craft, updating the wiki where necessary. Helpful reading:

• Aerospace-Craft Communications Protocols

(If available, we can use struct to automatically list characters in that occupation)

(Author and art credits)

Locked 0ut created this article on 2022/10/11 10:52.

This was approved by Andrew in this thread.