DEVELOPMENT OF AN AVIATION COMBAT CRITERION: PRELIMINARY REPORT

: A preliminary report is presented on the development of a combat criterion for naval aviators and flight officers. Interviews with veteran combat aviators, flight officers, and flight surgeons indicated that the flight surgeon was the single best individual capable of identifying unsatisfactory combat personnel. The criteria for identifying a man as unsatisfactory were: 'turned in wings,' 'had wings taken away,' 'transferred due to poor performance, ' 'given nonflying duties,' or 'nominated as person others refuse to fly with.' Questionnaires were sent to all combat deployed flight surgeons, and 57% were completed and returned at the time of this analysis. Results indicate that the flight surgeon identified as combat unsatisfactory that group of officers whose aviation training performance had been below average. Frequency distributions of 17 selection and training variables indicated that only Peer Rating has possible value as a screening device to prevent potentially inadequate performers from reaching the fleet.