Martin4
I
think you're getting Flt Ops Officer and Flt Ops Asst (FOA) mixed up. FOAs are enlisted airmen, while Flt Ops Officers are commissioned officers. If you're not sure what the difference is you need to look at that bit first.
In essence, FOAs generally know what they're doing and Flt Ops Officers get nicer hat badges.
Without boring you too much with history, Flt Ops Officers are a relatively new invention, originally intended to take aircrew out of ops-type jobs. This worked to a point, except it was decided that some ops jobs couldn't be put in the hands of non-aircrew and then other jobs were just created for them, so in a number of cases they weren't necessarily needed and worked alongside an already established FOM (Flight Ops Manager - sergeant and above). Problem was, excess officers sent to work alongside sergeants are normally referred to as 'holding officers' and the branch carried a stigma.
It's settled down a little nowadays, except some do still refer to the branch as the 'telephone answering branch'. Moreover, the professional training didn't help with credibility - it tried to be everything and achieved little due to the diversity of FOO posts. Add to that a 100% course pass rate - despite a more than average spattering of morons - and it was always going to attract derision.
If, on the other hand, you do mean FOA - joining as a junior rank airman - your initial training is a little more established. FOAs used to be known as Assistant Air Traffic Controllers and nowadays come in two brands. Firstly there's the run-of-the-mill FOA who joins and will only work in ops-type jobs. The other type is FOA (Q-ATC), which although it sounds the same can be a totally different job. Particularly it means you will do a Air Traffic Controller (ATC) aptitude test at the careers office. If accepted you then join as a regular FOA, but about 4-5 years in you'll be offered the chance to convert to ATC and if you pass the course, rocket to the rank of sergeant. The downside is (unless they've now changed it), if you fail ATC training that's you out, so it can be a short career!!
I'm not sure I'd advise anyone I knew to join as FOO, simply because there's been some doubt as to it's continued future recently - many FOOs I know were surprised not to see the branch mentioned in the 3rd batch of redundancies. However, if you do get offered it, it's easy money, you can't fail the course and us sergeants do the job for you.
