Lawrence Bovich Jr. Earns his Wings

ENS Lawrence J. Bovich Jr., USN, earned his Gold Wings as a Designated Naval Aviator at a ceremony held at Naval Air Station Whiting Field in Milton, Fla. on April 24. ENS Bovich will be assigned to Naval Air Station Jacksonville in May and will fly the MH-60R “Romeo” Seahawk helicopter. Bovich is the 32,834th designated Naval Aviator in history, considered one of the best trained helicopter pilots in the world.

As a student Naval Aviator, Bovich began his training with approximately 100 hours of primary and intermediate fixed-wing training. His helicopter training began with approximately 40 hours of primary training in the TH-57B model of the “Sea Ranger”, learning hovering, takeoffs, landings, approaches, autorotations and emergency procedures. He then learned to fly without visual references outside the cockpit, including basic and radio instrument flying in the TH-57C, culminating in their instrument check ride. The final stage of training introduced Bovich to advanced tactical concepts of rotary wing flight, including external load operations, confined area landings, night and tactical navigation, night landing zone operations, search and rescue, formation flying and small deck shipboard qualifications. Upon completion of training Bovich compiled approximately 215 hours of flight time in the Naval Air Training Command.

Bovich is from Verona and is a graduate of St. Peter’s Prep High School ’09 and The College of the Holy Cross ’13. He was commissioned as a Naval Officer from the Holy Cross Navy ROTC Battalion ’13.