Flight Meteorologist Badge
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The Flight Meteorologist Badge is a military badge decoration of the United States Navy which is issued to officers of the Restricted Line who are commissioned as weather and meteorology specialists. To be issued the Flight Meteorologist Badge, an officer must also have completed flight training to qualify as a Naval Aircrew Member. The Flight Meteorologist Badge itself is very similar to the Naval Aircrew Badge.
Personnel authorized the Flight Meteorologist Badge are most often assigned to aircraft such as the P-3 Orion and engage in weather surveillance and airborne monitoring duties. A more dangerous activity of Flight Meteorologists is known as “hurricane chasing”, where a Navy aircraft will fly into a hurricane in order to gauge wind speed and other environmental measurements.
Navy precedence charts also list the Flight Meteorologist Badge as the Naval Aviation Observer Badge. This dates to the original concept of the badge, when the decoration was classified as an Observer Badge and issued to flight support personnel such as navigators, co-pilots, and officer aircrew. In the modern Navy, the Naval Aviation Observer Badge is occasionally issued under its original name but is jointly known as the Flight Meteorologist Badge.
