| abstract | - In the U.S. Navy, most Naval Aviators are "Unrestricted Line Officers" (URL), eligible for command at sea; however, a small number of Limited Duty Officers and Chief Warrant Officers are also trained as Naval Aviators. A small number of URL officers trained as Naval Aviators who hold technical degrees at the undergraduate and/or postgraduate level may also opt to laterally transfer to the Restricted Line (RL) as Aeronautical Engineering Duty Officers (AEDO). AEDOs are frequently test pilot school graduates and retain their flying status, with most of their billets being in the Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIRSYSCOM). An even smaller number of Naval Aviators are in the U.S. Navy Medical Corps, primarily as Flight Surgeons. These are either former URL officers previously designated as Naval Aviators who later attend medical school and transfer to the Medical Corps, or an even smaller percentage of "dual designator" Naval Flight Surgeons who are selected to be Student Naval Aviators as Medical Corps officers. The U.S. Marine Corps does not categorize its officers in line and staff corps categories as does the Navy, however all of its Naval Aviators are considered combat officers and are analogous to the Navy's URL officers. Like the Marine Corps, the U.S. Coast Guard also categorizes all of its officers generally, with its Naval Aviators also being considered "operational" officers in the same manner as its Cutterman officers in the Coast Guard's surface cutter fleet. Until 1981, the U.S. Navy and U.S. Marine Corps also had a small number of senior enlisted personnel trained as pilots. Such individuals were referred to as Naval Aviation Pilots, colloquially "NAPs" or "APs". The since retired NAPs also continue to have a professional organization known as the Silver Eagles, which remains informally aligned with other Naval Aviation professional organizations such as the Association of Naval Aviation, the Tailhook Association, and the Naval Helicopter pilot Association, among others. The U.S. Navy still has an unknown number of NAVCADS (Naval Aviation Cadets) on active or reserve duty who entered service via the NAVCAD program during the late 1980s and early 1990s. NAVCADS were uncommisioned cadets who required to have a minimum of 60 college credit hours to enter training (rather than the Bachelors Degree normally required for entry into the flight training program) and were accessed only through the now defunct AOCS (Aviation Candidate Officer School). Upon completion of AOCS, NAVCADS would enter into flight training and upon successful completion of training be commissioned as active reserve officers. NAVCADS who failed to successfully complete flight training were contractually obligated to enter fleet service as undesignated enlisted personnel. The Naval Aviation Pilot insignia was identical in design to the Naval Aviator insignia worn by commissioned officers except that it was silver instead of gold (hence the "Silver Eagles").
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