I had two ex WW2 NCO pilots as CO's, both had been made officers after the war and eventually obtained one star rank on retirement. Watched for a little while, a newly made up Flying Officer giving his vast knowledge, to our WO engineer leader who was trying to maintain his composure, whilst this prate rambled on. Eventually the CO who had come down to Captain the airplane, had seen enough and from his mouth came the truth. Dear Flying Officer, you may out rank this man, but you have not yet learnt that he has forgotten more than you will ever learn, you must resign yourself to the fact that you can never gain his level of knowledge and experience and then you will be some use to me.
Later in the flight, he spoke to him again, I am going to show you how you need to know your men and your own limitaions. With that he pulled the co pilot out, and put the WO engineer in his seat and said it is all yours. With that the WO flew the aircraft to top of desent by hand, and then took it down to about circuit height where the boss took over.
As we were taxing in, they changed seats again, and the boss made one more statement. See our engineers spend so much time in the simulator, that I have seen three engineers perform a full session with all problems, without any problems at all.
So let us not kid our selves, officers perform an important leadership roll, but any air force is really run by the NCO's, they are the ones who make things happen.
Regards
Col