Talk:Officer Designate

Quaere whether this actually exists in the British Army and RAF. Who exactly has this rank? What rank insignia do they wear? Andrew Yong 4 July 2005 21:59 (UTC)

Can the author cite an authority for the statement that the OD rank exisits in the Royal Air Force and British Army? As a serving junior officer in the Royal Air Force, I have never encountered this rank. My knowledge of the British Army is less thorough, but again, I would be surprised to 'discover' a British Army rank between Officer Cadet and 2nd Lieutenant.80.41.133.159 23:18, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

I served for 10 years in the Army and have never heard of this rank. I suggest that this page is erroneous and be deleted - unless someone (the author possibly??) can provide evidence that it is a real rank. alexmb 30 October 2005


 * I would suggest that the British Army equivalent of OD would be Potential Officer, the white stripe insignia currently displayed as Student Officer at the Officer Ranks page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_army_officer_rank_insignia. Student Officer in turn therefore, would refer to members of the Officer Training Corps or Officer Cadets.


 * See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Officer_Training_Corps


 * In my mind this is logical, as a potential officer would be designated as an officer but prior to being commissioned.--81.171.193.118 13:16, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Page Re-write
Following the comments above and the absence of any response, I have re-written the page. I think the page should stay as OF(D) appears in the NATO rank scale and I have made this the key point of the article. I have stated that the rank does not exist in the British Army or RAF (if someone wants to challenge this, then please provide some evidence).

I have some concern that the information on OF(D)s in other countries might be incorrect, given the errors we've seen. However, I have not changed the substance of the information (only the grammar) as I just don't know. Can anyone confirm that the information is indeed correct? 88.105.130.170 02:19, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

OF(D)/Officer Designate Documentation needed
The article now has a few examples of the rank of Officer Designate, and a UK document with the abbreviation OF(D).

I also find it kind of weird the UK document refers to Midshipmen as OF(D) when they are actually OF-1 in the NATO documentation, and the Royal Air Force doesn't have any information about the uniform an Officer Designate wears. According to the documents I've seen, you start as an Officer Cadet with the substantive rank of Acting Pilot Officer, which contradicts the Ministry of Defense Document in the references. Kirk (talk) 13:20, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

I found a different DASA document with Acting Pilot Officer, which makes more sense. This article still needs a reference which actually defines the 'D' in OF(D) to mean Designate. Kirk (talk) 00:50, 20 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Cleaning up some other articles I came back to this one. the UK doesn't use the term anymore after re-organizing its rank structure (hence the dead links) & there are no other references prior to 2006 on the NATO website and those references are all to the UK. I left in the 2006 reference and the greek reference which I have no idea if its correct.  I think this term is used by other non-english armed forces so maybe the article can be expanded. Kirk (talk) 15:55, 1 November 2010 (UTC)