Air Force Warrant Officers Prepare To Join the Fight

The U.S. Air Force will make history on December 6 with its first graduating class of warrant officers in 66 years. The service saw the need to return warrant officers to its ranks to better prepare for Great Power Competition.

Warrant officers will be experts at capabilities and deliver critical effects through technologies, complemented by senior noncommissioned officers who are experts in leading people and junior enlisted who are tactical experts, explained Brig. Gen. Joy Kaczor, A2/6, Headquarters U.S. Air Force.

In addition, the warrant officers will provide specific technical guidance to commanders and their staff. Adding this career path will directly increase the capabilities of the service’s operational units, Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall stated in April.

Speaking to attendees at the AFCEA Alamo ACE event in San Antonio on November 19, and later that day to a room packed with airmen for their Warrant Officer Roadshow Briefing, the general and Lt. Col. Justin Ellsworth noted that the first two to three cohorts of new warrant officers would be selected from the general communications field—either from cyber operators, information technologists or communicators—given the operational need and demand for these type of experts.

“This is groundbreaking,” the general stated. “This is game-changing.”

The units to which the inaugural cohorts will report—beginning with the 30 airmen in the December 6 group and another 60 in the pipeline—are carefully being selected, the leaders said. “We are going to the teams, going out to the bases that are getting warrant officers and helping airmen understand how to integrate these warrant officers into their teams,” Gen. Kaczor said.

The service stood up the new warrant officer program very quickly, Gen. Kaczor explained. “Secretary Kendall on February 14 said, ‘Go and do,’ and in 17 days, we're going to graduate 30 Total Force Warrant Officers,” she told the airmen. “It's pretty exciting. And the time from when we got the ‘go do’ to when they are going to graduate next month, that is 296 days.”

Col. Ellsworth added that in his 18 years in the service, “I have never seen the U.S. Air Force move that fast.”

In late June, the Air Force activated the Warrant Officer Training School at Maxwell Air Force Base. That schoolhouse is initially providing “two flavors” of warrant officers, 17Ys and 17Ws, who will mostly go into squadrons at first—active duty, guard or reserve units.

Figuring out which units would first receive the new warrant officers “was a bit of a sprint,” Gen. Kaczor shared. For the 17Ys, the leaders relied on the 67th Cyber Wing and Dr. William Fitzsimmons, Col. Ellsworth continued.

“We brought in experts from the 67th Cyber Wing to do it, including Dr. Fitz,” the colonel said. “We sat with him and brought in the team to map out where we need these individuals to go. What we don’t want is the Air staff making decisions without inputs from the operational units.”

The leaders are following a similar process for 17Ws, which will be “more of an IT [information technology] warrant officer,” Col. Ellsworth clarified, noting that the leaders are still rounding out the requirements for the 17Ws. “We are still refining what it looks like for our ‘Whiskeys,’ to understand where they need to go.”

The Air Force is also looking at how the permanent change of station, or PCS process, will work for the first few cohorts of warrant officers. The leaders emphasized that the warrant officers would have a home in the 17X career field.

In addition, the Air Force benefited greatly from the Army and the Navy’s help, given their existing warrant officer structures and experience, Gen. Kaczor noted. The Army quickly opened up seats for Air Force trainers at Ft. Gordon.

The land warfare service also shared advice about warrant officer promotion tracks. Air Force leaders are currently working out with the Air Force A1 staff how the promotion process and timelines will work for the warrant officers, the general stated. In addition, Secretary Kendall, who was involved in the process, especially wanted to make sure new warrant officers would not necessarily lose bonuses by coming into the program. 

Moreover, Air Force leaders have even had to figure out the basics surrounding this new type of warrior, including how they should be addressed and saluted. They will refer to the warrant officers as “Warrant Smith,” for example, as opposed to “Chief Smith,” Col. Ellsworth clarified.

“If you look at the name, we are going to call them ‘Warrant Smith,’ or whatever. We're not going to do ‘Chief Smith’ because we already have this group of individuals called ‘Chief.’ That was shot down pretty hard, pretty quick,” he laughed.

For those interested in applying, the next application window for warrant officers opens in March 2025, with the associated evaluation board convening in June 2025.

Accepted airmen should expect to be at Maxwell for the Warrant Officer Training School for eight weeks, Gen. Kaczor said.

In general, applicants can be active-duty, guard or reserve airmen. They must be 42 years old or younger, have been in the service for at least five years, be at a minimum rank of E5 and have or be in the process of obtaining Top Secret clearance.

For now, the service will continue to pull from the 17W and 17Y Air Force specialty codes. And 17Xs will be eligible in the next board, Gen. Kaczor said. The leaders are working with the A1 staff now to map this out.

For the first cohort, the service had 400 applicants for 45 seats, Gen. Kaczor said, and she sees the program further opening up to the other Air Force populations. They are already seeing interest from other career fields, such as aircraft maintainers and intelligence.

Down the road, this also means opening the program to interservice applications, for Army or Navy personnel to come into “Big Blue,” as well as interested civilians.

For civilians, the Air Force will lean on its experience from its Cyber Direct Commissioning Program, the general stated. For that program, the service posted specific job postings, and Gen. Kaczor suggested that civilian warrant officer positions will also come from a targeted approach to fill specific roles or gaps. 

The Air Force has not seen warrant officers in their ranks in decades, Gen. Kaczor shared. “It was 1982 when the last active-duty Warrant Officer, CW4 Long retired,” she said. “And it was 1992 when the only CW5 in the Air Force retired, CW5 Barrow. And both flights are named after them, which is pretty cool.”

Those interested in getting more information about the program or applying should visit myfss.us.af.mil.