One Hundred Years of U.S. Navy Air Power (55 page)

Thus there was no opportunity for naval aviation to rest on its laurels after World War II. In combination with a massive postwar demobilization, it had to forge ahead with a program to adopt the new engine and aerodynamic technology. It approached this task by attempting to reduce strategic risk through the letting of multiple contracts to different aircraft companies in hopes that at least one of the designs would be viable. On the other hand, it accepted a high degree of operational risk by ordering series production of various models before flight testing was complete. The net effect of this strategy was that between 1945 and 1959, twenty-two Navy fighters made their first flights, whereas over the following forty-six years there were only five.
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Some of the designs spawned during the early period such as the F2H Banshee were useful machines that had lengthy service lives while others such as the F7U Cutlass and F-11 Tiger were disappointments and had only brief service.

As mentioned previously, the first years of the jet era in the Navy were a disaster in terms of aircraft and crews lost, but the Navy had little choice but to continue sending jets to sea. The gas-guzzling nature of jets made getting them back aboard the carrier in a timely manner a matter of utmost urgency and increased the pressure on carrier captains, admirals, and their staffs to adapt to a very different operational tempo. Future Vice Admiral Gerald Miller was a on a Carrier Group staff in 1950 as they operated F9F-2 Panthers in the Korean theater of operations. They were going to swap sixty-four Panthers from an out-going carrier to one just coming into theater. The weather was bad ashore and the heavy seas were causing the decks to pitch. The staff work and planning to set up the operation did not adequately take into account the limited endurance of the new aircraft. Miller's description of what happened illustrates the consequences of learning to operate jets in a wartime environment:

We had a lot of these fighters in the air. Then we tried to bring them down and it was a tough job of getting them on board. They were running out of fuel and there was no base on the beach to send them to. We had to get them back on board those two carriers, and we broke up those planes in some numbers.

It was awful. It was so bad, I can still remember the Admiral walking over to the opposite side of the bridge, putting his head down on his hands and shaking. It was so bad he couldn't even get mad. It was a horrible mess. Well, that was all because of the size of the ship, the nature of the airplanes and straight deck operations. We started from debacles of that kind to get something better.

Considering the upheaval in the navy caused by demobilization and the introduction of new technologies, it's amazing that we kept together as much as we did. . . . We worried, but we did proceed with the jet program.
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At the same time as naval aviators were attempting to master the new jet aircraft, they were grappling with two new missions that increased the degree of difficulty
even more: night and all-weather operations and nuclear weapons delivery. In a sense, these two missions were connected, in that it was felt that when the call came, weather or darkness could not stand in the way of getting the nuclear weapon to its target. These two missions exerted considerable pressure on aircraft design and on the risks naval aviation was willing to endure to put these capabilities to sea. Coupled with the risks inherent in jet-powered aviation in those years, these mission areas significantly contributed to the loss of aircraft. To get a feel for the nature of the environment in which naval aviators operated, listen to Captain Gerald O'Roarke, USN (Ret.) describe the environment in VC-4, the Navy's East Coast night/all-weather fighter squadron in the early 1950s:

All naval aviators are routinely exposed to, or involved in, aircraft accidents. That's accepted as almost a hazard of the trade. In carrier work, where dangers abound, accidents tend to be more frequent. In the night carrier operations of those days, accidents were so frequent that they were considered commonplace and unexceptional. Whenever a det [detachment of four to six aircraft sent out on a carrier] departed, the aircraft they flew off were more or less written off. No one expected that all of them would ever come back to Atlantic City. . . . Unfortunately, the same negativism tended to extend to the pilots as well, whose safe return wasn't much better than the aircraft. Between pilots lost, the pilots maimed, and the pilots who decided to throw in their wings, precious few dets ever returned with the same resources they took with them.
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ECHELONS

Although the development process of naval jet aircraft has been virtually continuous since 1945, and the service lives of various models of jets have significantly overlapped those that have followed, it is still possible and useful to think of the transition process as a series of waves or echelons.
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From the first flight of the FH-1 Phantom to the introduction of the F/A-18 Hornet there have been six identifiable waves or echelons of Navy jets.

Echelon I: The First Jets

The first jets that entered into Navy service were procured in relatively low numbers and were used primarily to develop operating procedures. These included the McDonnell FH-1 Phantom and F2H Banshee, the North American FJ-1 Fury, Vought F6U Pirate, Grumman F9F-2 Panther, Douglas F3D Skyknight, and the Vought F7U-1 Cutlass. All but the Cutlass were straight-winged jets. The first operational squadrons received the Phantom and Fury in 1949. These jets proved to be reasonably compatible with the straight-deck carriers of the day as their approach speeds were not much higher than propeller aircraft and their handling characteristics were
not too different. However they lacked thrust, they had little in the way of weapons systems beyond guns, and their gunsights were little improved over their World War II kin. After about a year of operations (none were deployed) they were replaced by the more capable second-echelon jets.

Vought's Cutlass was one of this first echelon of jets, at least from the standpoint of when development started. It was one of only a few Navy jets over the years that could be said to be ahead of its time. First flown in 1948, it was a futuristic-looking tailless fighter whose potential was never fully realized due to the deficiencies of the engine (Westinghouse) technology of the day. Originally conceived of as a high-speed interceptor, it took nine years to get it from the drawing board in 1946 to its first deployment in 1955, and by the time it became operational, other swept-wing jets such as the F9F-6 Cougar and the F3H Demon had cornered the market on fighter operations. Due to its lack of thrust (for its weight and the nature of the airframe) and difficult handling characteristics, especially in landing on straight deck carriers, it only made a few deployments.

Echelon II: Korean War Era Jets

It was the Banshees, Panthers, and Skyknights that provided the Navy's inventory of jet fighters during the Korean War. The McDonnell Banshee was essentially an up-sized and upgraded Phantom. Initially deployed on the East Coast, as the Korean War developed Banshee squadrons eventually made an appearance. Its key strengths were its high-altitude capability and decent range. The Panther is perhaps the most famous of the early Navy jets, figuring prominently in the movie
The Bridges at Toko-Ri
. Neither the Banshees nor the Panthers had many MIG confrontations because of where they operated, which was probably a good thing due to their performance deficits vis-à-vis the Soviet-built fighters. However they did manage to come out of the war with a positive kill ratio, and they performed highly useful service in the attack of ground targets. The F3D Skyknight, a rather slow and ungainly looking aircraft, actually had the best record against the swept-wing MIGs because it was designed and equipped to be operated at night. The Banshees eventually became the Navy's key night fighter in the early to mid-1950s and both the Banshee and Panther served long and usefully in the reserves and for other functions after they were superseded in the fleet.

Echelon III: The First Swept-Wing Jets

Concerned about the low-speed handling characteristics of swept-wing jets, in 1946 the Navy had Bell Aircraft Corporation modify a P-63 King Cobra propeller fighter with a swept wing that was designated an L-39. Low-speed approach tests with this machine, especially when equipped with leading edge slats, indicated that swept-wing
aircraft handling characteristics would be acceptable for a carrier approach and landing. The Navy also contracted with Douglas Aircraft Corporation in 1945 to develop a high-speed test aircraft dubbed the D-558. Actually, this became two aircraft, the straight-winged D-558-1 Skystreak, a jet-powered aircraft used to explore the transonic region, and the swept-winged D-558-2 Skyrocket, powered by both jet engines and rockets, that eventually got up to Mach 2. Interestingly, these sleek test beds hardly stayed ahead of operational jet aircraft performance, but they did highlight the phenomena that would be encountered in high-speed flight and pointed the way to the design elements that would be needed there.

Due primarily to engine problems, three of the Navy's first five swept-wing fighters had extended development periods. The Cutlass' first flight was in 1948; the initial models of the F3H Demon and the F4D Skyray took place in 1953 and 1954. However, due to not only the presence of swept-wing MIGs in Korea, but also continued pressure from the Air Force, the Navy was desperate to put a swept-wing fighter to sea. Thus it turned to modified versions of existing fighters. With the substitution of swept wings for straight wings, the F9F-4 Panther became the F9F-6 Cougar, and FJ-3 Fury was derived from the Air Force's successful F-86 Sabre. The Cougars deployed first in 1953, with the Fury going to sea in 1955. By 1957 both the missile-toting Demon and the delta-winged Skyray were found on fleet carriers. The ultimate model of fighter in this echelon was the F-11 Tiger, a barely supersonic aircraft that was only produced in small numbers and saw only a few deployments because of its deficient range and endurance and because more capable fighters were about to be fielded.

This echelon of jets also included the A-3 Skywarrior, a large twin-engine jet designed to deliver the large atomic bombs of the day. The “Whale” as it was known, had the speed of a fighter but had an operational radius in excess of 1,600 nautical miles. First deployed in 1956, the Whale could be operated from converted
Essex
-class carriers, although at almost 70,000 pounds gross weight and a wingspan of 72 feet, it was a challenge. The A-3 represented the jet-powered nuclear bomber the Navy felt was necessary for the survival of naval aviation, but within several years of its introduction, the size and weight of tactical nuclear weapons had decreased to the point where fighter-sized jets could carry them. Eventually the A-3 lost its nuclear delivery mission, but it was found to be a very useful airframe for aerial tanking and an array of electronic warfare missions. It remained in service until 1987. Reflecting the challenges of flying the early jets, of the 281 A-3s built, 108 (38 percent) were lost to mishaps and only three in combat.
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At the other extreme in terms of size and weight was the Douglas A-4 Skyhawk, often referred to as the Tinker Toy Bomber or the Scooter. Due to the decreasing size and weight of tactical nuclear weapons, it became feasible to design a fighter-sized aircraft as a nuclear bomber. This approach had several advantages, including
less expense, less room taken up on a carrier's flight deck, and exposure of only one crewmember to risk on a nuclear mission. The A-4 had long, spindly landing gear so that a nuclear weapon could be slung beneath it. The Skyhawk was so small, including a very cozy cockpit, that pilots joked that you wore it instead of getting in it. First deployed in 1957, the A-4 represented a significant improvement in speed, reliability, and handling over its contemporaries. By the time Vietnam began, the A-4 proved to be a versatile and effective general-purpose light attack aircraft. After its fleet service was over, it found further use as an adversary aircraft and as a two-seat trainer well into the 1990s.

Echelon IV: Faster Fighters, Better Bombers

By the late 1950s, jet engine and aerodynamics technology had advanced to the point that designers could produce aircraft that could generate high top-end speeds in the Mach 2 range and also attain respectable turn performance for dogfighting. The Vought F-8 Crusader was the first of these improved fighters, replacing the earlier jets starting in 1957. The Crusader could better Mach 1.5, but was a difficult aircraft to bring aboard a carrier and was designed and operated as a day fighter, having only a marginally capable radar. Perhaps the quintessential jet fighter coming out in this period was the F-4 Phantom II. Excelling as both a fighter and a bomber, it enjoyed a particularly long service life and was well loved by its crews. Able to approach Mach 2, the Phantom II was a crewed fighter, with a radar intercept officer in the backseat.

Also introduced in this era was the A-5 Vigilante; although originally designed as a Mach 2 nuclear bomber, it morphed into a very good reconnaissance aircraft. The other attack jets introduced in this period were the A-6 Intruder, a two-place, all-weather medium bomber, and the A-7 Corsair II, a single-seat light attack and close air support machine. Neither of these latter two subsonic aircraft could be considered fighters, but their electronic weapons systems shared the generational technology that inhabited the F-4: analog and early digital mission computer systems and multi-mode radars.