Military Aviation

V

The Turbojet and the Helicopter

Two important technical developments changed the face of aviation after World War II. The turbojet engine was developed almost simultaneously by the German engineer Hans von Ohain and the English engineer Frank Whittle (see Jet Propulsion). On August 27, 1939, the German Heinkel He 178 became the first jet-powered aircraft to fly. The German Messerschmitt Me 262, the first operational jet, entered service in the fall of 1944. First seen as a way for airplanes to fly faster, jet engines could produce more power than piston engines and opened the way to vast improvements in airplane performance.

A number of experimental helicopters had flown in the 1930s, but the Russian-born American aeronautical engineer Igor Sikorsky, who flew his VS-300 helicopter on September 14, 1939, was the first to develop a truly practical machine of this type. In the Korean War (1950-1953), helicopters were used to carry wounded soldiers to field hospitals and to rescue downed pilots. The U.S. and British navies experimented with them as ship-launched submarine hunters.

The second big breakthrough in helicopter design was the introduction in the 1950s of compact, light, and powerful engines based on jet technology. One of the first helicopters designed for turbine power from the ground up was the Bell UH-1 “Huey,” produced by the thousands for the U.S. Army during the Vietnam War (1959-1975). A radically modified Huey, the Bell AH-1 HueyCobra, revolutionized the conduct of air-ground battles because it was capable of destroying enemy tanks without being vulnerable to the tanks’ weapons.

VI

Research and Development in Military Aviation

Research and development have been the keys to aviation progress since 1945, when the United States and other governments recognized the value of well-funded experimentation in the science of flight. In the United States, flight research is conducted by the military services and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). After World War II, the United States built a series of aircraft dedicated to research. The first postwar research aircraft, such as the Bell X-1 and Douglas D-558-2 Skyrocket, were designed to fly faster than the speed of sound, about 1,220 km/h (760 mph).

---

---

From 1945 to 1956, the highest speed attained by a manned airplane increased threefold, from 1,000 to 3,000 km/h (600 to 1,800 mph). In 1956 the X-15, the best known of the U.S. post-war research aircraft, flew to speeds in excess of 6,400 km/h (4,000 mph) and reached altitudes of up to 107,000 m (350,000 ft) in 1963. No research aircraft designed to operate solely within the atmosphere has ever flown faster.

VII

Military Aviation in the Modern World

The United States and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) emerged as rival superpowers after 1945 when a Cold War developed between them. American strategy required a fleet of bombers capable of delivering nuclear weapons anywhere in the world. The B-29 and B-50 bombers were replaced by Consolidated's ten-engine (six-piston, four-jet) B-36 Peacemaker. The Boeing B-47, which used a revolutionary swept-wing design, was the first successful United States strategic jet bomber. The Boeing B-52 Stratofortress became one of the most remarkable military airplanes of all time. First flown on October 3, 1952, it remained in service more than 50 years later. It is enormously versatile, carrying a huge variety of weapons.

In the late 1950s, both the United States and the Soviet Union started building bombers and fighters capable of speeds of 3,200 km/h (2,000 mph) or more, but most of these projects were scrapped because the political leaders in both countries thought that new surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) would be able to shoot them down. The only survivors of this era were the Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird spy plane and the Mikoyan MiG-25 fighter, which were both flown in the 1960s and remain the fastest military airplanes ever built. The SR-71 was fired on more than 1,000 times by SAMs and was never hit.

The highest-flying military airplane became the Lockheed U-2, originally designed in 1954-1955 for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Designed in secrecy and tested at a remote site in the Nevada desert that came to be called Area 51, the lightweight U-2 carried a special reconnaissance camera to an altitude of almost 24,000 m (80,000 ft), out of reach of contemporary fighters. It ranged untouched over the Soviet Union until May 1, 1960, when a U-2 belonging to the CIA was shot down over Sverdlovsk (now Yekaterinburg).

The most important military airplanes of the 1960s, dominating the skies in combat over Vietnam and the Middle East, were supersonic jet fighter and attack aircraft that stemmed from the jet revolution. The Lockheed P-80 Shooting Star was the first jet delivered to combat units of the USAAF, in 1945. The North American F-86 Sabre was the weapon of choice for USAF pilots contesting Korean airspace with the Soviet-built MiG-15. A new generation of supersonic fighter aircraft appeared after 1953. The North American F-100 Super Sabre; the Convair F-102 Delta Dagger; Britain’s BAC Lightning; and the twin-engine MiG-19 were typical of the era.

The U.S. Navy’s first “supercarrier,” the USS Forrestal, joined the fleet in 1955. The 75,000-ton ship was known as a supercarrier because it could carry more than 70 large fighter and attack airplanes. Earlier aircraft carriers could hold about 40 jets. The most versatile and successful fighter of the 1960s—the McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II—was designed for the Navy and later adopted by the U.S. Air Force, Britain, and several other countries. With a top speed of more than 2,120 km/h (1,320 mph), the F-4 could carry more bombs than a B-17, or up to eight guided air-to-air missiles. More than 5,000 of these aircraft were built.

The Vietnam War (1959-1975) was a fighter war in terms of military aircraft. The most important warplanes, apart from the F-4, included the Vought F-8 Crusader, the Air Force’s Republic F-105 Thunderchief, and the Navy’s Grumman A-6 Intruder. Later in this war, for the first time, fighters carried bombs that were guided to their targets by laser beams or TV cameras. Many U.S. fighter aircraft, however, were shot down by densely packed arrays of SAMs and antiaircraft guns.

Fighters were the dominant weapon in the Middle East wars of June 1967 and October 1973. In 1967 Israel’s air force destroyed most of Egypt’s airplanes on the ground in a dawn surprise attack and then helped defeat Egyptian tank forces on the ground. Six years later, Russian-made SAMs shot down many U.S.-made Israeli fighters, an event that led to important new developments in tactics and technology.

The Cold War and the Vietnam War also spurred the development of military transport airplanes, such as the Lockheed C-130 Hercules. The rugged, four-propeller C-130 performed more different missions than any other type of airplane, including reconnaissance, bombing, and precision attack, and was still in production in 2002, 50 years after it was designed.

VIII

Today and Tomorrow

A

Vietnam War and Middle East Wars

The lessons of Vietnam and the Middle East wars were vital to the development of airpower in the 1970s and 1980s, an era in which war in central Europe was an all-too-real possibility. Most air combat engagements during the Vietnam War ended with fighters turning tightly at speeds of 1,000 km/h (600 mph), fast enough for pilots to close in on and see their adversaries. As a result, fighters designed after 1970 were built for maneuverability and sudden acceleration rather than outright speed. The U.S. Navy commissioned the McDonnell Douglas F-18 Hornet, while the former Soviet Union produced the Mikoyan MiG-29 and the big, spectacular Sukhoi Su-27. The most successful fighter of this era, however, was the Lockheed Martin F-16, more than 4,000 of which have been built since production started in 1977. F-16s had shot down 71 enemy airplanes by 2002, and no enemy fighter had shot down an F-16. Nevertheless, the Vietnam experience showed that it was hard to bomb accurately from a fighter. In the 1970s and 1980s, efforts were made to improve the accuracy of guided bombs on fighter aircraft.

After Russian-made SAMs shot down U.S.-built fighters during the 1973 war in the Middle East, U.S. engineers looked at a radical approach for protecting airplanes from SAMs: making the airplane almost invisible to radar. Many people thought that a stealth airplane (one that cannot be easily seen by radar) was impossible, but within months designers at Lockheed and Northrop showed that a fighter could be designed so that it seemed no larger than an insect on radar. Under tight secrecy—the project was “black,” meaning that its existence itself was secret—the United States started work on a stealth fighter, the Lockheed F-117, and a stealth strategic bomber, the Northrop B-2. The bomber was an enormously complex airplane, a tailless flying wing built with new materials and processes, and it proved so expensive that only 21 out of a planned 133 aircraft were built.

B

Persian Gulf War

Since the days of Billy Mitchell, critics had argued that airpower could never win a war. The Persian Gulf War of 1991 proved that view to be wrong. During the months following the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990, Lockheed C-130 Hercules, C-141 Starlifter, and C-5A Galaxy aircraft transported combat and support troops and tons of equipment and supplies into the Middle East.

Lockheed F-117 stealth fighters launched Operation Desert Storm early on the morning of January 17, 1991, with devastating attacks on Iraqi communications centers and command posts. Throughout the air campaign, coalition forces maintained an umbrella of reconnaissance airplanes and electronic countermeasures aircraft, that carried specialized equipment to thwart radar over enemy territory, disrupt Iraqi communications, identify targets, and direct air strikes. Ship and air-launched cruise missiles struck preselected targets. F-15C Eagles and U.S. Navy F-14 Tomcats maintained air superiority, while F-16 Falcons, F-18 Hornets, and British and French Jaguars attacked air defense installations. B-52G bombers pounded front-line troop emplacements.

Operation Desert Storm concluded with a classic air-ground advance against Iraqi troops. Advancing troops were supported by helicopter gunships and specialized ground attack craft like the Fairchild A-10 Thunderbolt II. Close air support cleared the way for the infantry and armored units that drove the enemy from Kuwaiti territory in only four days.

The application of air power in the Persian Gulf was by no means perfect: precision guided weapons did not always strike their intended targets, mobile missile launchers proved difficult to locate, and human error led to a tragic loss of life from friendly aerial fire.

	More from Encarta
	•  Presidential Myths Quiz •  Coffee break: Recharge your brain