The Story of Naval Aviation 1954 US Navy Film MN-7969 (Patreon)

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DEVELOPMENT OF NAVAL AVIATION UP TO ITS ROLE AS THE PRIMARY STRIKING WEAPON OF THE FLEET. THE FIRST TRANS-ATLANTIC FLIGHT AND THE FIRST UNITED STATES CARRIER LANDING, USE OF HIGH-PERFORMANCE NAVY JET AIRCRAFT.

Originally a public domain film from the National Archives, slightly cropped to remove uneven edges, with the aspect ratio corrected, and one-pass brightness-contrast-color correction & mild video noise reduction applied.

The soundtrack was also processed with volume normalization, noise reduction, clipping reduction, and/or equalization (the resulting sound, though not perfect, is far less noisy than the original).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naval_aviation

Wikipedia license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Naval aviation is the application of military air power by navies, whether from warships that embark aircraft, or land bases.

Naval aviation is typically projected to a position nearer the target by way of an aircraft carrier. Carrier-based aircraft must be sturdy enough to withstand demanding carrier operations. They must be able to launch in a short distance and be sturdy and flexible enough to come to a sudden stop on a pitching flight deck; they typically have robust folding mechanisms that allow higher numbers of them to be stored in below-decks hangars and small spaces on flight decks. These aircraft are designed for many purposes, including air-to-air combat, surface attack, submarine attack, search and rescue, matériel transport, weather observation, reconnaissance and wide area command and control duties.

Naval helicopters can be used for many of the same missions as fixed-wing aircraft while operating from aircraft carriers, helicopter carriers, destroyers and frigates...

World War II saw the emergence of naval aviation as the decisive element in the war at sea. The principal users were Japan, United States (both with Pacific interests to protect) and Britain. Germany, the Soviet Union, France and Italy had a lesser involvement. Soviet Naval Aviation was mostly organised as land-based coastal defense force (apart from some scout floatplanes it consisted almost exclusively of land-based types also used by its air arms).

During the course of the war, seaborne aircraft were used in fleet actions at sea (Midway, Bismarck), strikes against naval units in port (Taranto, Pearl Harbor), support of ground forces (Okinawa, Allied invasion of Italy) and anti-submarine warfare (the Battle of the Atlantic). Carrier-based aircraft were specialised as dive bombers, torpedo bombers, and fighters. Surface-based aircraft such as the PBY Catalina helped finding submarines and surface fleets.

In World War II the aircraft carrier replaced the battleship as the most powerful naval offensive weapons system as battles between fleets were increasingly fought out of gun range by aircraft. The Japanese Yamato, the most powerful battleship ever built, was first turned back by light escort carrier aircraft and later sunk lacking its own air cover.

During the Doolittle Raid of 1942, 16 Army medium bombers were launched from the carrier Hornet on one-way missions to bomb Japan. All were lost to fuel exhaustion after bombing their targets and the experiment was not repeated. Smaller carriers were built in large numbers to escort slow cargo convoys or supplement fast carriers. Aircraft for observation or light raids were also carried by battleships and cruisers, while blimps were used to search for attack submarines...

Jet aircraft were used on aircraft carriers after the War. The first jet landing on a carrier was made by Lt Cdr Eric "Winkle" Brown who landed on HMS Ocean in the specially modified de Havilland Vampire LZ551/G on 3 December 1945. Following the introduction of angled flight decks, jets were regularly operating from carriers by the mid-1950s.

An important development of the early 1950s was the British invention of the angled flight deck by Capt D.R.F. Campbell RN in conjunction with Lewis Boddington of the Royal Aircraft Establishment at Farnborough. The runway was canted at an angle of a few degrees from the longitudinal axis of the ship. If an aircraft missed the arrestor cables (referred to as a "bolter"), the pilot only needed to increase engine power to maximum to get airborne again, and would not hit the parked aircraft because the angled deck pointed out over the sea. The angled flight deck was first tested on HMS Triumph... The modern steam-powered catapult, powered by steam from a ship's boilers or reactors, was invented by Commander C.C. Mitchell of the Royal Naval Reserve... The first Optical Landing System, the Mirror Landing Aid was invented by Lieutenant Commander H. C. N. Goodhart RN. The first trials of a mirror landing sight were conducted on HMS Illustrious in 1952...