The Rank Came Back After 45 Years. Here’s Who Qualifies

The Air Force spent 45 years without warrant officers, the last one retiring in 1980 and the ranks disappearing from an Air Force that decided senior NCOs and commissioned officers could cover the same ground. That changed in February 2024, when then-Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall announced that the ranks were coming back.

The service has about 245 warrant officers as of September 2026, in ranks ranging from Chief Warrant Officer 1 to Chief Warrant Officer 5 at multiple commands, an Air Force spokesperson told Military.com.

Why the Air Force Brought the Rank Back

Kendall framed the decision around a specific gap: As the Air Force reoriented itself toward what it called great power competition — meaning direct peer conflict with a country such as China — it needed people who were purely technical experts, sitting outside the normal path of command authority that officers carry and outside the people-leadership lane senior NCOs are built around.

“We need operational units with all the capabilities they need to deter and compete with our pacing challenges and ready to enter a conflict on short or no notice,” Kendall said in a February 2024 announcement. “In those units we need the right mix of skills necessary for high end combat and to ensure technological superiority, particularly in information technology and cyber.”

The Air Force and Space Force were the only two branches without warrant officers; the Army, Navy, Marine Corps and Coast Guard had all kept theirs the entire time. Then-Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Allvin was explicit in 2024 that the return would start narrow: cyber and information technology only.

Related: Complete Guide to Air Force Enlisted and Officer Ranks

Standing It Up in Under a Year

Airmen at staff sergeant and above became eligible to apply starting in April 2024, with a selection board picking candidates that summer for an eight-week Warrant Officer Training School built from scratch at Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama. The first class graduated Dec. 6, 2024 — 296 days after Kendall’s announcement.

Subsequent classes have followed the same model: technical specialists, mostly pulled from cyber and IT career fields, going through roughly eight to nine weeks of training before returning to their units as warrant officers advising commanders directly on their area of expertise. The Air National Guard and Air Force Reserve have joined the program as well.

What Comes Next

Now that it’s up and running, warrant officers need to show their worth, said Brig. Gen. Lauren A. Courchaine in a February 2026 article in Signal Magazine. Courchaine serves as director of warfighter communications and cyberspace operations in the Air Force’s Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Warfighter Communications and Cyber Systems.

“One of my charges out to the warrant officer community is, you have got to give me some quantitative feedback on how you are changing the nature of the ecosystem in a positive manner,” Courchaine said in the article.

She also acknowledged a related challenge: that senior Air Force leaders need a clear, defensible answer for how a warrant officer’s role differs from a senior NCO’s, since both are technically experienced airmen operating outside the commissioned officer chain of command.

She said commands may have to convert officer billets to warrant officer billets if they want warrant officers.

The Air Force spokesperson told Military.com: “We currently have dedicated funding for the Warrant Officer Training School. The department is working to fund dedicated billets in future budget cycles.”

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