FLY NAVY

FLY NAVY

Commander Sue Eagles, communications director for the Navy Wings charity, highlights the genius of the STOVL jump-jet concept that led to the F-35B and carrier aviation of the future.

From the time the guns fell silent at Trafalgar, few doubted that Britannia ruled the waves, but it was the arrival of the aircraft carrier that was to prove the ‘Queen of the Board’. These ‘mobile airbases’, able to move at will to strike enemy fleets in their bases; to counter the hated U-boat scourge; and to engage an enemy at ranges hitherto impossible, consigned the ‘era of the big gun’ to just another chapter in the age-old history of the sea. As HMS Prince of Wales (R09), sister ship to HMS Queen Elizabeth (R08), sails into her home port of Portsmouth to join the fleet, her entry into service with the Royal Navy (RN) firmly re-establishes the United Kingdom’s (UK’s) formidable carrier aviation capability.

The RN pioneered the aircraft carrier during World War I (WWI), and HMS Argus, the first carrier with a full-length flight deck and large compartment below to act as a hangar, was commissioned in 1918. She was designed to launch a torpedo bomber strike against the German High Seas Fleet, and thus take control of the North Sea at one stroke. However, WWI ended before that attack could be carried out. Nevertheless, the RN continued to develop the concept of Carrier Strike, and during World War II (WW II) executed it with awe-inspiring success at Taranto in 1940 against the Italian Battle Fleet in the Mediterranean. The vulnerability of battleships to air power was convincingly demonstrated in 1941 with the crippling of the Bismarck by Swordfish aircraft from HMS Ark Royal, and the tragic destruction of the former HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Repulse solely by Japanese air attack. Poignantly, this latter event significantly altered the ship procurement and operational deployment strategies of both the UK and the United States. F

RN aircraft carrier innovations

After WW II, when it seemed that no carrier could operate the new jet aircraft, the legendary British naval test pilot Capt Eric (Winkle) Brown CBE DSC AFC landed the first jet, a Sea Vampire, on an aircraft carrier (HMS Ocean) in 1945. Over the next decade, the RN produced the three inventions that made modern fast-jet carrier operations possible; the angled deck, the steam catapult, and the mirror landing sight.

The offensive power of the RN’s carrier force proved indispensable in the Pacific, Korea, Suez, and the Cold War; and in the 1970s when it seemed that carriers were too costly, the RN showed that it could still take modern aircraft to sea using Invincible-class aircraft carriers and Sea Harriers. The pure genius of the concept of short take off and vertical landing (STOVL) was at the very pinnacle of British engineering and innovation, and without the Sea Harrier and the ski-jump, another British design, the successful Falklands operation in 1982, and others since, would not have been possible. No other nation can match this record of technical innovation paralleled by operational success, or has such a distinguished carrier aviation heritage. But what is it about flying from aircraft carriers that has given Britain such a world-leading reputation? HM Ships Queen Elizabeth and Prince of Wales have been ‘Built by the Nation for the Nation’. At the heart of this great national achievement, however, the technical achievements, test programmes and problem-solving skills of naval aviators and engineers have opened-up previously unimagined possibilities and overcome extraordinary challenges, leading to the development of new advancements and technologies that have changed history. It has been this mindset of analytical thinking, inventiveness and ingenuity that has benefited the evolutionary story profoundly – and remains the hallmark of carrier aviation today.

Find, Fix and Strike

While putting aircraft above the fleet to provide defence and protect merchantmen was a vital role, defence alone was not enough. From its earliest beginnings, the strategic and conceptual philosophy of naval flying has always been ‘Find, Fix and Strike’ as embodied in the Fleet Air Arm (FAA) motto. It was the combined ability to be the eyes and ears of the fleet, to ‘observe’ and ‘locate’, as well as to decisively ‘strike’ with appropriate force that gave carrier aviation the combat-winning edge.

The first British F-35B Lightnings aboard HMS Queen Elizabeth. The pure genius of short take off and vertical landing (STOVL) was at the very pinnacle of British engineering and innovation, and the inspirational through-life development and achievement of the Sea Harrier directly informed the design requirement for its replacement, leading to the F-35B Lightning.

Royal Navy Photo LPHOT Kyle Heller, Crown Copyright

The striking power of naval aircraft developed at such a pace, that later aircraft in the evolutionary story were hardly recognisable beside their forebears of 1939. The birth of the jet age in the 1960s and 70s, and the radical new designs it spawned, saw the top speed of naval fighters rise from a ‘sedate’ 600 mph to a blistering 1,400 mph within a few years.

This year is the 40th anniversary of the Sea Harrier entering service with the FAA, and the inspirational success of the Sea Harrier in the Falklands War directly informed the design requirement for its replacement, leading to what has become the F-35B Lightning II. The Argentinians possessed a landbased air force of more than 200 aircraft and had a significant potential advantage, but the Sea Harrier’s.