Training, Naval Aviators

Naval aviation demands determination, skill, and physical prowess. All naval aviators undergo extensive training, first at the Aviation Preflight Indoctrination (API) in Pensacola, Florida, and then at one of the three 22-week-long primary training pipeline programs where the rigorous curriculum tests future aviators physically and academically while also acquainting them with the basis of naval aviation. Marine Corps aviators are also trained at U.S. Navy facilities. The chief of naval air training, located in Corpus Christi, Texas, oversees the Naval Air Training Command, and it is his or her duty to safely train and produce combat-quality aviation professionals for two different environments—water and land.