Senior airman
US Air Force military rank
Senior airman (SrA) is the fourth enlisted rank (E-4) in the United States Air Force, just above airman first class and below staff sergeant. The rank designation is the same for male and female. Between its approval on 30 December 1975 (with implementation 1 June 1976) and 19 March 1991, senior airmen wore sleeve chevrons with blue center stars instead of silver to distinguish them from the non-commissioned officer rank of "sergeant", also a pay grade of E-4. The latter was abolished in 1991 and the blue center star was changed to white to conform to all enlisted rank chevrons.
The Air Force promotes an airman first class (A1C) to senior airman after 36 months "time in service" (TIS) and 20 months "time in grade" (TIG), or 28 months TIG, whichever occurs first. Outstanding airmen first class, limited to no more than 15 percent of the total, may be promoted to senior airmen six months early, in a competitive process called below the zone. Senior airmen are expected to be technically proficient and begin to develop leadership skills, and may be expected to supervise an airman of lesser rank.
Senior airmen must attend the five-week Airman Leadership School, the first course of the Air Force's college of enlisted professional military education, before being promoted to staff sergeant. SrAs with no projected promotion and between three and six years TIS, may attend Airman Leadership School.
History
Formerly, from 1976 to 1991, this grade was divided into ranks with separate titles: sergeant (referred to unofficially but almost universally within the USAF as "buck sergeant" or simply "buck"), a non-commissioned officer; and senior airman, which is the equivalent of specialist, a non-supervisory rank.
“Senior airman” enters the record as uS Air Force military rank. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Senior, airman and Force can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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This entry incorporates text from “Senior airman” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.