50 Fun Facts About Naval Aviation

Which June 1942 carrier battle cost Japan four aircraft carriers and turned the tide of the Pacific war?

Midway Airport took the name in 1949, seven years after Navy dive bombers wrecked all four enemy carriers, three of them inside six minutes.

Which country's navy acquired the unfinished Soviet carrier Varyag via a firm claiming to plan a floating casino?

China had the rusting hull towed from Ukraine, rebuilt it and commissioned it in 2012 as Liaoning, the first aircraft carrier its navy ever operated.

Which future US president flew Avenger torpedo bombers from a carrier and was shot down near Chichi Jima in 1944?

George H. W. Bush, one of the Navy's youngest pilots, bailed out over the sea and was picked up by the submarine USS Finback; both of his crewmen died.

Which four-engine transport plane became the largest aircraft ever to land on a carrier during 1963 Navy trials?

The C-130 Hercules made 21 full-stop landings on USS Forrestal with no arresting gear, then took off again each time without a catapult.

On which of the Great Lakes did the converted side-wheel steamers USS Wolverine and USS Sable train carrier pilots?

Michigan's two freshwater flattops, nicknamed the Corn Belt Fleet, trained some 17,000 pilots, signal officers and deck crew by the end of World War II.

USS Akron and USS Macon, which each housed Sparrowhawk fighters in an internal hangar, were what kind of 1930s craft?

Airships Akron and Macon were helium-filled flying aircraft carriers that released their fighters in flight and caught them again on a trapeze.

Which future Moon-walker flew 78 combat missions over Korea in Panther jets from the carrier USS Essex?

Neil Armstrong said a cable strung across a Korean valley as a booby trap tore six feet off his Panther's wing, forcing him to eject.

Which jersey color marks the fuel handlers, nicknamed grapes, on the flight deck of a US Navy aircraft carrier?

Purple shirts pump the jet fuel, while yellow shirts are the directors who steer aircraft around the crowded deck with hand signals.

Which US Navy flight demonstration squadron, formed in 1946, is the world's second-oldest formal aerobatic team?

The Blue Angels took their name from a New York nightclub, the Blue Angel, after the team saw its advertisement in The New Yorker.

Which swing-wing Grumman fighter did Tom Cruise's Maverick fly from a carrier in a 1986 film about Navy pilots?

The F-14 Tomcat swung its wings forward for slow carrier landings and swept them back for supersonic dashes, all without the pilot touching a lever.

Which civilian pilot made the first take-off from a ship, flying off the cruiser USS Birmingham in November 1910?

Eugene Ely followed up two months later with the first landing on a ship, touching down on a platform built over USS Pennsylvania in San Francisco Bay.

Which device under a carrier jet's rear fuselage is meant to snag the third of four cables stretched across the deck?

The tailhook was there from day one: the first shipboard landing, in 1911, used a hook system designed by a circus performer turned aviator.

Into what does an aircraft carrier turn and steam at speed before launching or recovering its planes?

The wind over the bow adds to the ship's own speed, so aircraft need less deck to get airborne and touch down slower relative to the ship.

Which US naval base was struck by 353 aircraft launched from six Japanese carriers on a Sunday morning in December 1941?

Pearl Harbor's three assigned aircraft carriers were all away from the base that morning and escaped untouched, as did its oil storage tanks.

What name was given to the Japanese suicide air attacks on Allied ships that began in October 1944?

Kamikaze was an old word for the typhoons that scattered Kublai Khan's invasion fleets in 1274 and 1281; about 3,800 pilots died flying the attacks.

Which Army bomber, never designed for carriers, flew off USS Hornet's deck to strike Tokyo in the 1942 Doolittle Raid?

All sixteen B-25 Mitchell bombers got airborne, but none could land back aboard: fifteen were wrecked in crashes and one came down in the Soviet Union.

Which Navy fighter ace won the Medal of Honor for single-handedly defending USS Lexington from Japanese bombers in 1942?

Butch O'Hare was credited with five bombers that day; Chicago's main airport took his name in 1949, six years after he was killed in action.

Which Florida city, site of the first US naval air station, is known as the Cradle of Naval Aviation?

Pensacola is still where every Navy, Marine Corps and Coast Guard officer begins the primary training that leads to a naval aviator's wings.

Which future US senator survived the 1967 USS Forrestal fire, then was shot down over Hanoi in his A-4 Skyhawk?

John McCain was on his 23rd bombing mission when a missile hit his jet, and he remained a prisoner of war in North Vietnam until 1973.

Which American ship, the longest naval vessel ever built, became the world's first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier?

USS Enterprise is the only carrier ever built with more than two reactors: she had eight, and she steamed on them for more than half a century.

What color are the wings pinned on a newly qualified US naval aviator at the end of flight training?

Gold wings set naval aviators apart from Air Force pilots, whose badges are polished silver.

Which ship, converted from the coal carrier USS Jupiter in 1920, became the first US Navy aircraft carrier?

USS Langley even had a pigeon loft on her stern for message-carrying birds; released together, the flock once deserted to a shipyard's cranes.

Which aviation pioneer, a rival of the Wright brothers, sold the Navy its first aircraft and trained its first pilots?

Glenn Curtiss ran what was effectively the first military flying school at San Diego, on a site the Navy now calls the Birthplace of Naval Aviation.

At which Italian naval base did 21 British biplanes from HMS Illustrious hit three battleships in a 1940 night raid?

Taranto was the first ship-to-ship attack made by aircraft alone; it sank one battleship, damaged two more and signalled the end of the big-gun era.

Which British biplane torpedo bomber, nicknamed the Stringbag, jammed the rudders of the battleship Bismarck in 1941?

The Fairey Swordfish earned the name Stringbag not for its struts and wires but for the seemingly endless variety of stores it was cleared to carry.

Which May 1942 battle was the first naval action in which the opposing fleets never sighted or fired on each other?

Coral Sea was fought entirely by carrier aircraft striking over the horizon, and it cost the US Navy the carrier Lexington, scuttled after heavy damage.

Which Douglas dive bomber fatally damaged all four Japanese fleet carriers lost in one June 1942 battle?

The SBD Dauntless had perforated split flaps that worked as dive brakes, holding it steady in the steep plunge that made its bombing so accurate.

Which Japanese battleship, joint heaviest ever built with her sister Musashi, was sunk by US carrier planes in 1945?

Yamato carried the largest guns ever mounted on a warship, yet she went down to bombs and aerial torpedoes with the loss of most of her crew.

Which Mitsubishi carrier fighter gave up its secrets after one crash-landed almost intact in the Aleutians in 1942?

The A6M Zero flipped over on soft ground, and American test pilots repaired and flew it to work out tactics that could beat the nimble fighter.

Which World War II Vought fighter had inverted gull wings that earned it the nickname Bent Wing Bird?

The F4U Corsair's wings dipped so its landing gear could stay short and sturdy while still lifting a huge 13-foot propeller clear of the deck.

Which carrier design feature, invented by Royal Navy captain Dennis Cambell, lets aircraft land while others launch?

The angled flight deck was first tried on HMS Triumph in 1952 and suited fast jets: a pilot who misses the wires has clear sky ahead instead of parked aircraft.

What name is given to the curved ramp at the bow of carriers such as HMS Queen Elizabeth that flings jets upward?

The ski-jump turns part of a jet's forward motion into upward motion, so it can get airborne from a short deck with no catapult at all.

What food nickname do US Navy pilots give the glowing light of the optical landing system on a carrier?

The meatball rides above a row of green reference lamps when a plane is too high and sinks below them when it is too low.

What nickname do US Navy carrier crews give the landing signal officer, known in the Royal Navy as the batsman?

Paddles dates from the days when the officer guided pilots down by waving colored paddles or flags, and the job is still known as waving.

What do Navy pilots call missing every arresting wire, the reason they push to full power the moment they touch down?

A bolter sends the pilot climbing straight ahead to rejoin the landing pattern for another try, with the engines already at full thrust.

What name is given to the command tower on the starboard side of an aircraft carrier's flight deck?

The island holds the bridge and flight control, and Britain's Queen Elizabeth-class carriers have two: one for steering the ship, one for running the flying.

Which Sikorsky helicopter type, flown as the famous Helicopter 66, lifted Apollo crews from the sea after splashdown?

A Sea King numbered 66 recovered astronauts from five Apollo missions; after it was renumbered 740, the Navy repainted the famous 66 for later pickups.

Which British carrier jet shot down 20 Argentine aircraft without an air-to-air loss during the 1982 Falklands War?

The Sea Harrier was the only fixed-wing fighter available to protect the British task force; two were lost to ground fire but none to enemy fighters.

Which stealth fighter's B model, built to land vertically, flies from Britain's two Queen Elizabeth-class carriers?

The F-35 Lightning II hovers on a lift fan driven by a shaft from its engine; the B model first landed vertically in 2010.

By what popular name is the Navy Fighter Weapons School, founded at Miramar in 1969, better known?

TOPGUN's first headquarters was a stolen modular trailer; in 1996 the school left California for Naval Air Station Fallon in the Nevada desert.

USS Gerald R. Ford replaced steam catapults with EMALS, a launch system that flings aircraft down the deck using what?

Electromagnets along the track propel a carriage that tows the aircraft, accelerating it more smoothly than steam and putting less stress on the airframe.

Which French leader gives his name to the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier that became France's flagship in 2001?

Charles de Gaulle is the only nuclear-powered carrier ever completed outside the United States Navy, and was France's first nuclear-powered surface ship.

What is the name of the Royal Navy's aviation branch, handed back from the RAF to the Admiralty in 1939?

The Fleet Air Arm was formed in 1924 inside the RAF, so for fifteen years the aircraft flying from Royal Navy ships belonged to another service.

Which carrier-based radar plane is easily recognised by the 24-foot rotating dome mounted above its fuselage?

The E-2 Hawkeye is nicknamed the Hummer for the drone of its turboprop engines, and no carrier aircraft has had a longer production run.

The US Navy's P-8 Poseidon submarine hunter is a military version of which twin-engine airliner?

The Boeing 737 airframe took over from the propeller-driven P-3 Orion, which had hunted submarines for the Navy since 1962.

Which aircraft, which lifts off like a helicopter and cruises like a plane, began replacing the C-2 Greyhound in 2021?

The V-22 Osprey can deliver cargo straight to amphibious and supply ships as well as carriers, something the fixed-wing Greyhound could never do.

Which June 1944 carrier battle did American pilots nickname the Great Marianas Turkey Shoot?

Philippine Sea got its nickname from the lopsided air fighting, and it ended Japan's ability to mount large-scale carrier operations.

Which Grumman fighter was credited with 5,223 kills, more than any other Allied naval aircraft of World War II?

The F6F Hellcat's design was so sound that it needed little modification once production began, and 12,275 were built in just over two years.

Which Royal Navy test pilot made a record 2,407 carrier landings and the first carrier landing in a jet aircraft?

Eric Brown, known as Winkle, also flew 487 types of aircraft, more than anyone else in history.

Which US Navy flying boat made the first flight across the Atlantic in May 1919, stopping in the Azores on the way?

NC-4 took 19 days to get from New York State to Lisbon, and its feat was soon eclipsed by the first nonstop crossing, flown by two British airmen two weeks later.