One Hundred Years of U.S. Navy Air Power

by Smith, Douglas V.

  Following the end of the Vietnam War, Navy helicopters returned to their traditional missions. Frank Erickson had proposed, and Commander Malcolm Cagle had extolled, the value of helicopters for ASW, logistics, and search and rescue. The valuable contributions of helicopters in other mission areas were willfully ignored. The Vietnam missions—gunship and combat search and rescue—were delegated to the reserves. The future would require a re-examination. Operations in Grenada would develop too quickly to admit the mobilization of the reserve CSAR squadron. The HS community would once again be pressed into service. The gunship squadrons, one on each coast, would transform into special operations support squadrons with CSAR as a secondary mission, equipped with yet another variant of the H-60. These squadrons would also experience obstacles in deploying for Operation Desert Storm. While they would be sent to the desert, their assignment to the Special Operations organization would preclude taking part in the Navy CSAR Task Force that operated in the Arabian Gulf. Instead, the HS squadrons, flying SH-3H airframes, armed with only M-60 machine guns and without self-sealing fuel tanks, would again be called on. Ironically, it was not the HS-12 Wyverns who established the CSAR helicopter detachment in the northern gulf, nor the other HS squadrons with whom they shared that duty, but a LAMPS detachment that would record the only opposed Navy rescue of Desert Storm.

  Most of the drama for Navy helicopters in Desert Storm proved to be reserved for the LAMPS detachments. While the destroyer on which the CSAR helicopters were based was repositioned southward for replenishment, Lieutenant Kenneth Szmed and his crew were called on to rescue an Air Force pilot down in the water off Kuwait City. LAMPS crews also provided radar guidance to British Lynx helicopters, enabling them to approach enemy patrol boats at wave-top heights to avoid detection before firing their ship-killing missiles. The CSAR detachments did participate in the liberation of the first Kuwaiti territory set free, Qaruh Island, which was liberated by embarked SEALs, transported in Wyvern H-3s, covered by Army OH-58 helicopters.44

  The successors to the RH-3 minesweepers of Vietnam were also busy. In the intervening years, a new helicopter community was born. The increasing sophistication of Soviet mines required larger and more sophisticated detection and sweeping gear. To handle these larger payloads, the massive H-53 heavy-lift helicopters were adapted to the mine countermeasure mission. These MH-53E aircraft swept channels to allow ships to approach the Kuwait coast, a key enabler for devastating naval gunfire support missions.

  The collapse of the Soviet threat, combined with the lessons of Desert Storm, demonstrated a need for a re-evaluation of the structure, missions, and equipment of Navy helicopters. New missions, or rather old ones re-acknowledged, have come to dominate training and planning. Combat search and rescue, support to naval Special Warfare, armed helicopters for striking small craft, surveillance using infrared sensors—all these missions reflect the legacy of Vietnam. They also represent necessary changes as other platforms have left the naval inventory. With the departure of the S-3 Viking from the scene, a new set of missions falls to Navy helicopters.

  As naval aviation shapes a course for the future, rotary-wing aviation continues to play in increasingly important role. Ironically, as Navy helicopters assume more roles and a larger place in plans, fewer models will be available. In the end, after fifty years, only three H-3s remained in Navy service, performing SAR duty at NAS Patuxent River. These too were retired in 2009. Both the H-2 and H-46 airframes have been retired. The Navy is moving toward two H-60 models for all missions—the MH-60R and MH-60S. However, in recognition of the growing requirement for more helicopters and more pilots to fly them, a third helicopter training squadron was established at Naval Air Station Whiting Field on 25 May 2007. The Helicopter Training Squadron TWENTY-EIGHT Hellions will help train the increasing percentage of naval aviators who fly these rotary-wing aircraft. “The helicopter community remains at the core of Naval Aviation, and a robust and highly capable helicopter fighting force is a fundamental requirement for any Navy operation,”45 so opined the Navy’s director, Air Warfare, in a 2004 article in The Hook, the Journal of Carrier Aviation. These sentiments, by a career fixed-wing pilot, represent a sea change. Naval helicopters have come of age.

  NOTES

  1.Sikorsky Aircraft, press release, n.d., “High Lights in the Development of the Sikorsky Helicopter,” Igor I. Sikorsky Historical Archives. While some sources indicate that fewer flights were completed, twenty-four is a consensus number and is supported by this and other documentation from the Sikorsky Archives.

  2.U.S. Navy, Chief of Naval Operations, United States Naval Aviation, 1910–1970, NAVAIR 00-80-P-1 (Washington, DC: GPO, 1970), p. 120.

  3.Robert M. Browning Jr., The Eyes and Ears of the Convoy: Development of the Helicopter as an Anti-submarine Weapon (Washington, DC: United States Coast Guard Historian’s Office, 1993), p. 9.

  4.U.S. Navy, United States Naval Aviation, p. 119; Browning, The Eyes and Ears of the Convoy, pp. 5–6.

  5.Frank Erickson, “A Brief History of Coast Guard Aviation,” The Bulletin, (November–December 1966), p. 422.

  6.Ibid.

  7.Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Executive Order 8929, 6 FR 5581, 1941 WL 4041, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=60917 (accessed 19 August 2009).

  8.Browning, The Eyes and Ears of the Convoy, p. 4.

  9.U.S. Navy, United States Naval Aviation, p. 114.

  10.Erickson, “A Brief History,” p. 423.

  11.Samuel Eliot Morison, History of United States Naval Operations in World War II, vol. 1, The Battle of the Atlantic, 1939–1943 (Boston: Little, Brown, 1947; Edison, NJ: Castle Books, 2001), pp. 412–13.

  12.Frank Erickson, letter to Headquarters, U.S. Coast Guard of 29 June 1942; cited in Robert M. Browning, “The Development of the Helicopter,” Igor I. Sikorsky Archives, http://www.sikorskyarchives.com/tdoth.html (accessed 10 July 2009).

  13.U.S. Navy, United States Naval Aviation, p. 115.

  14.Erickson, “A Brief History,” p. 423.

  15.Ibid.

  16.Browning, The Eyes and Ears of the Convoy.

  17.Papers of Ernest J. King, Operational Archives Branch, Naval Historical Center, Washington, DC.

  18.Thomas B. Buell, Master of Sea Power: A Biography of Fleet Admiral Ernest J. King (Boston: Little, Brown, 1980), p. ix; Williamson Murray and Allan Millett, A War to Be Won: Fighting the Second World War (Cambridge, MA, and London, England: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2000), p. 189.

  19.Grover Loening, memorandum to War Production Board, dated 14 May 1943, cited in Browning, The Eyes and Ears of the Convoy.

  20.Browning, The Eyes and Ears of the Convoy, pp. 9–10.

  21.Discussion of the similarity of the design of these tests and modern flight test procedures is based on the author’s experience as a rotary-wing test pilot, including participation in seven dynamic interface tests conducted to determine the compatibility of the H-60 and H-3 series aircraft with a variety of naval and naval service vessels.

  22.Most ships that routinely operate helicopters have a flight deck located at the stern or have no superstructure aft of and above the flight deck. The few exceptions tend to be vessels like the hospital ships USNS Mercy and USNS Comfort, which were not originally designed to operate helicopters.

  23.Arthur Pearcy, A History of U.S. Coast Guard Aviation (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1989), p. 59. All naval helicopters experience these problems to some degree, with the extreme case being the H-46 series. The problems of “tunnel strikes” while starting and stopping the rotors led to an extensive flight test program in the mid-1990s, in which the author was involved, to determine the cause and remediation.

  24.U.S. Navy, United States Naval Aviation, p. 163.

  25.Malcolm W. Cagle, “The Versatile Windmills,” United States Naval Institute Proceedings (July 1948): 833–35.

  26.Roy A. Grossnick, United States Naval Aviation, 1910–1995 (Washington, DC: GPO, 1997), p. 171.


  27.Ibid., p. 756.

  28.U.S. Navy, “HT-8 Eight Ballers: Squadron History,” https://www.cnatra.navy.mil/tw5/ht8/history.asp (accessed 15 December 2009).

  29.Marcus O. Jones, “The Type XXI and Innovation in the German Navy during the Second World War,” paper presented at the Naval History Symposium, U.S. Naval Academy, Annapolis, 10–11 September 2009.

  30.Michael A. Palmer, Origins of the Maritime Strategy: The Development of American Naval Strategy, 1945–1955 (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1990), pp. 32–34.

  31.Rick Burgess, “HS-1 Seahorses,” Naval Aviation News 81, no. 1 (November/December 1998), p. 12.

  32.U.S. Navy, Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, vol. 3 (Washington, DC: GPO, 1977), pp. 153–54.

  33.Malcolm W. Cagle and Frank A. Manson, The Sea War in Korea (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1957), p. 416; Hill Goodspeed, “Whirlybirds over Korea,” Naval Aviation News 85, no. 1 (November/December 2002), p. 33.

  34.Richard F. Kaufman, “Behind the Bridges at Toko-ri,” Naval Aviation News 84, no. 3 (March/April 2002), pp. 18–23; Goodspeed, “Whirlybirds over Korea,” p. 33.

  35.Personal experience of author over eleven years in HS squadrons and in flight test; also author conversations with Lieutenant Commander David Moran, USN; Captain Douglas Roulstone, USN; and Captain Paul A. “Tony” Laird, USN, during the course of these tours.

  36.Andreas Parsch, Directory of U.S. Military Rockets and Missiles, Appendix 4, QH-50 DASH (28 April 2004), http://www.designation-systems.net/dusrm/app4/qh-50.html (accessed 25 November 2009); “DASH History,” http://www.gyrodynehelicopters.com/dash_weapon_system.htm (accessed 5 December 2009).

  37.Bill Gunston, An Illustrated Guide to Military Helicopters (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1986).

  38.The black berets and the reading of the CNO order authorizing their wear was an integral part of the HS-4 change of command ceremonies during the period the author served on the CVW-14 staff and as a department head in the squadron.

  39.Robert E. Jones, “The Most Highly Decorated Navy Squadron in Vietnam?” Foundation 2, no. 1 (1981), pp. 91–97.

  40.HC-7 Rescue Log, 3 October 1967 to 8 April 1975, unofficial document, http://www.hc7seadevils.org/draftrescuelog.pdf (accessed 10 December 2009).

  41.Hill Goodspeed, “Into the Night,” Naval Aviation News 84, no. 6 (September/October 1998), pp. 27–29.

  42.James R. Lloyd, “To Those Who Returned for Me,” The Hook 25, no. 4 (Winter 1997), pp. 33–36.

  43.Mark Morgan, “Orphans of 7th Fleet,” The Hook 26, no. 2 (Summer 1998), pp. 26–37.

  44.Edward J. Marolda and Robert J. Schneller Jr., Shield and Sword: The United States Navy and the Persian Gulf War (Washington, DC: Naval Historical Center, 1998; Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2001), pp. 221–25.

  45.Rear Admiral Thomas J. Kilcline, “Navy Helicopters at the Core of Strike Group Capability,” The Hook 32, no. 4 (Winter 2004), pp. 8–10.

  CHAPTER 12

  The Transition to Swept-Wing Jets

  Robert C. Rubel

  Definition of an optimist: a naval aviator with a savings account.

  —Naval aviation quip

  In this centennial year of naval aviation’s history, the jet engine and jet-powered aircraft are ubiquitous. Millions travel safely in jet airliners, and the military jet fighter is almost a cultural icon. However in the late 1930s the prospect for powering aircraft with anything but piston engines seemed remote to all except for a few visionary engineers in Great Britain and Germany. Their work resulted in the first flights of jet-powered aircraft in the early 1940s, but due to the low thrust of their engines these aircraft were outclassed by existing piston-engine fighters. Additional advances in engine design in Germany resulted in the fielding of the ME-262 “Swallow” fighter, which, although not as maneuverable as the American P-51 Mustang and other Allied fighters, had a top speed 100 mph greater due to its jet engines and swept wings, giving it significant operational advantages. After the war, aeronautical engineers from all the Allies studied German technical advances and strove to incorporate them into their new generation of fighters.

  The U.S. Navy, accustomed to working with Westinghouse on turbochargers for its piston-engine fighters, let a contract with them during World War II to develop a jet engine, and most of the early Navy jets were powered by Westinghouse engines. Westinghouse experienced significant difficulties in producing jet engines, which proved to be a serious impediment to the success of Navy jet designs in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Whether developed by Westinghouse, General Electric, or other manufacturers in the United States and elsewhere, all early jet engines suffered from low thrust and high fuel consumption and were slow to power up and power down, as well as having poor reliability. Thus the first generation of jet fighters such as the Air Force’s P-80 Shooting Star and the Navy’s FH-1 Phantom were of limited operational utility despite having the high-speed and high-altitude capabilities characteristic of jet-powered planes. It was not until the second generation of jet engines was produced that viable operational jets could be fielded.

  When the Navy introduced its first operational jet, the McDonnell FH-1 Phantom, in 1947, it began a transition phase that turned out to be extended and very costly in terms of aircrew lives and airplanes lost. The higher speeds and altitudes of jets presented a new set of problems to the aircraft designers and manufacturers as well as to the Navy squadrons that operated them. In 1946 nobody knew that a high-performance jet fighter needed such appurtenances as a stabilator (instead of an elevator); irreversible, hydraulic flight controls with artificial feel; redundant hydraulic systems; pitch and yaw stability augmentation; ejection seats; air conditioning; and others.1 Learning these lessons required a trial-and-error process that resulted in the fielding and rapid obsolescence of a series of different jets, each reflecting solutions to the defects discovered in earlier models.

  It is central to the story presented in this chapter to consider how long the “transition” to jets lasted. Some histories of naval aviation regard the transition to jets to be substantially complete with the phaseout of the last propeller-driven fighters, while others maintain that the transition lasted until the introduction of the F-8 Crusader and F-4 Phantom II—the first Navy carrier-based fighters that were the equals in performance of their land-based counterparts. Yet another way of looking at it is via the lens of safety; one might declare the transition to have been complete when the Navy aviation accident rate became comparable to that of the U.S. Air Force. The logic behind this reasoning is that there are a multitude of factors—technical, organizational, and cultural—that constitute the capability to operate swept-wing jets, and mishap rate is an indicator of how successful overall an organization is in adopting a new technology. Using this criterion, the Navy’s transition process lasted until the late 1980s, which is not coincidentally the era in which the F/A-18 was arriving in the fleet in numbers. The basis for this argument is that tactical jet aircraft design and technology presented Navy aircrews, maintenance personnel, and leadership with several major challenges that were not substantially overcome until the introduction of the F/A-18 Hornet in 1983. These challenges included technical problems such as engine reliability and response times, swept-wing flight characteristics, and man-machine interface problems. The Air Force also encountered these challenges, but the Navy’s operating environment and indeed its organizational culture presented significant impediments to achieving a fully successful transition until well after the Air Force had.

  Between 1949, the year jets started showing up in the fleet in numbers, and 1988, the year the Navy/Marine mishap rate finally got down to Air Force levels, the Navy and Marine Corps lost almost 12,000 airplanes and over 8,500 aircrew of all types (helos, trainers, and patrol planes in addition to jets), in no small part as a result of these issues. Perhaps the statistics about the F-8 Crusader, a supersonic fighter designed by Vought in the late 1950s, provide a good illustration of the problem. Always k
nown as a difficult airplane to master, 1,261 Crusaders were built. By the time it was withdrawn from the fleet, 1,106 had been lost to mishaps. Only a handful of them were lost to enemy fire in Vietnam.2 While the F-8 statistics might be worse than most models, the magnitude of the problem is clear. Whether from engine failure, pilot error, weather, or bad luck, the vast majority (88 percent!) of Crusaders ever built ended up as smoking holes in the ground, splashes in the water, or fireballs hurtling across the flight deck. This was naval aviation from the start of the jet era through about 1988. Today the accident rate is normally one or fewer per 100,000 hours of flight time, making a mishap an unusual occurrence. This is in stark contrast to the landmark year of 1954, when naval aviation (USN and USMC) lost 776 aircraft and 535 aircrew, for an accident rate well above 50 per 100,000 flight hours—and the rate for carrier-based tactical aviation was much higher than that.

  During this extended transition period naval aviation participated in three major wars and numerous crises, and of course many planes and crews were lost to enemy fire. However, the vast majority of aircraft losses over this period were due to mishaps, many of which were associated with the technical and organizational problems just discussed. In other words, the airplanes that populated the flight decks of aircraft carriers from the introduction of the FH-1 Phantom through the retirement of the F-14 Tomcat were, with several exceptions, hard to fly and maintain, and would kill the unwary crew. Many men and a few women gave their lives trying to operate these machines in the challenging environment of the sea. This chapter is meant to recognize their sacrifice and honor their service.