Hello
Can anyone tell me the difference between the use of Commanding Officer, Officer Commanding and Officer in Charge?
Is an officer in charge of a squadron OiC until a probation period is over?
Can a SNCO be a CO?
I have tried searching on Bader but have been unable to find the answer. It seems some Wings just create their own policy on it.
Just want to make sure Im using the correct one. Many thanks in advance.
Minefield!
So, IIRC you’re only a CO when you get to a certain level - Wg Cmdr or above. Everyone underneath that is an OC.
OIC isn’t a formal position the Corps can reference - it doesn’t exist in documentation anywhere, yet some wings still insist that you are called it until your appointment is confirmed. To my mind this is insulting - you either trust the person enough to make them OC of a sqn, or you don’t and then you don’t make them in charge at all!
I can’t give RAF examples, but from an Army perspective, a CO is in charge of a major unit e.g. a battalion. An officer in charge of a minor unit e.g. a company would be an OC. It is sometimes used for sub units of a minor unit e.g. detachments.
OiC is not an official position. It is just denotes someone in charge of an activity or event.
An SNCO would not be in charge of a major unit, so would not be a CO.
Indeed - OC and CO are basically the same, but you need to be an OF-4 (Wg Cdr, Lt Col, etc) to be a CO. Other officers in charge of smaller units (only if they’re units in their own right) are OCs. So if you have flights on your squadron with an officer in each, they would be Flight Commanders rather than OC Flights.
OIC is an officer in charge of something, generally as a temporary appointment.
Thank you all!
Its amazing how many people (including myself) were / are using them incorrectly :unsure:
[quote=“talon” post=11331]I can’t give RAF examples, but from an Army perspective, a CO is in charge of a major unit e.g. a battalion. An officer in charge of a minor unit e.g. a company would be an OC. It is sometimes used for sub units of a minor unit e.g. detachments.
OiC is not an official position. It is just denotes someone in charge of an activity or event.
An SNCO would not be in charge of a major unit, so would not be a CO.[/quote]
Talon is right and the distinction between the two is very much more an Army thing that an RAF one. In the ACO and RAF, we tend to blur the CO/OC distinctions where for our Army colleagues, they have distinct, and legal (in military terms) meanings. For the RAF, we tend only to use CO for Stn Cdrs. OiC isn’t a temporary appointment either, it is as Talon says, someone who is in charge of a particular activity, such as OiC Football, or OiC Thrift Shop. However, the ACO seems to have adopted it for temporary appointments where they don’t want to (or can’t) appoint a permanent OC.
Nobody in the ACO will loose any sleep over whether they are called a CO or an OC, or at least they shouldn’t.