Innovation in Carrier Aviation (Naval War College Newport Papers, 37)

Abstract

Abstract : This study is about innovations in carrier aviation and the spread of those innovations from one navy to the navy of a close ally. The innovations are the angled flight deck; the steam catapult; and the mirror and lighted landing aid that enabled pilots to land jet aircraft on a carrier s short and narrow flight deck. This study is different from our previous study of innovation in the development and use of aircraft carriers, U.S. & British Aircraft Carrier Development, 1919-1941, which compared innovation in carrier aviation in the U.S. Navy and the Royal Navy in the years before WorldWar II. At the time, the U.S. Navy and the Royal Navy were competitors. The two navies did not share technical information and in fact worked to hide their advances from one another, despite the fact that they had cooperated closely during World War I. Only in the winter of 1940 41 was there a renewal of the close professional contact between the naval aviators of the two nations that had first blossomed in 1918. Those initial cooperative relations grew into a very strong relationship during World War II, when British carriers were often equipped with mostly U.S.-made aircraft and many British pilots trained in the United States.