Chief of Naval Air Training (CNATRA)

The mission of training prospective aviators and Naval flight officers (NFO) comes under the cognizance of Chief of Naval Air Training (CNATRA). Headquartered at NAS Corpus Christi, training is coordinated through five training wings. Each wing commander directs the operations of a major air station and its tenant squadrons. The locations of the wing commanders are NASs Meridian, Ms; Pensacola and Whiting Field, Fl; and Corpus Christi and Kingsville, TX. Under these training wings are 16 squadrons, approximately 700 aircraft and 14,000 personnel.

CNATRA trains approximately 1,000 pilots and 300 Naval flight officers each year. More than 100,000 Naval aviators have earned their "wings of gold" since 1910. The pilot training program for college graduates takes about 18 months to complete and the Naval flight officer syllabus takes about 12 months. All students undergo common primary training of 66 flight hours in Pensacola where they are screened for one of three specialty pipelines: helicopters, multi-engine (propellers) or strike warfare (jets).