United States observer badges

The various observer badges of the United States Armed Forces are military badges dating from World War I. The badges were issued by the United States Army (prior to the establishment of the United States Air Force in 1948) and United States Navy to navigators and otherwise non-pilot flying personnel whom generally acted as air observers or air gunners. Pilots were awarded one of the various U.S. aviator badges. During the Second World War, observer badges would be supplemented — primarily in the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) — by individual badges for aeronautical specialists, such as the Bombardier Badge, Aerial Gunner Badge, and the Flight Engineer Badge, among others, with a similar situation occurring in the United States Navy.

Badges for each profession generally persisted into the 1950s, at which time the USAF and USN observer badges and specialist badges were generally phased-out in-favor of the modern aircrew badges and/or combined navigator/flight specialist-observer badges (such as the United States Navy "Naval Aviation Observer and Flight Meteorologist Insignia" which is issued to flight-qualified mission specialists in both the U.S. Navy and U.S. Marine Corps). The U.S. Air Force now only awards the USAF Observer Badge to Air Force personnel who have qualified as NASA Space Shuttle mission specialists, have flown an actual mission aboard the shuttle and/or the International Space Station and who are otherwise not previously aeronautically "rated." The USAF Observer Badge is technically the only remaining stand-alone observer badge within the U.S. Armed Forces proper, though it shares a design with the USAF Navigator Badge and USAF Combat Systems Officer Badge. The United States Army, since the separation of the USAAF from it in 1948, no longer awards any form of observer badge.

While rarely-issued among U.S. personnel, observer badges have seen a resurgence in the air forces of other countries, most notably the United Kingdom and Canada.