Naval Aviation Chronology 1970-1980

THE SEVENTIES

Naval aviation began its seventh decade with the United States heavily embroiled in the Vietnam War; 1980 ended with carriers Eisenhower and Ranger deployed in the Indian Ocean. The country had no sooner ended its long military involvement in Vietnam than it faced a growing crisis in the Middle East, a crisis that reached hostile proportions late in 1979 when Iranian hoodlums captured the United States embassy in their capital city.

Throughout the seventies, the American public became increasingly aware of the country's critical dependence upon oil from foreign sources. During this time, an acute consciousness of the United States' position as a two-ocean nation re-emphasized the reliance upon the U.S. Navy to keep sea lanes open and commerce moving unhampered.

For nearly ten years, the burden of the Navy's air action fell upon the carriers and aircraft of the Seventh Fleet. To meet this responsibility, Naval air relied on established weapons and material and introduced new ones. The Walleye, a television-guided glide bomb designed to home automatically on target, was tested successfully in combat. Helicopters flexed their muscle in a combat role and served also as aerial tanks and flying freight trains. Land-based patrol aircraft, in Operation Market Time, scoured the coastline of South Vietnam to search out enemy infiltrating vessels and locate surface forces for interception. In 1972, Operations Linebacker I and II waged heavy interdiction and bombing campaigns against North Vietnam. Aircraft of the Seventh Fleet performed the most extensive aerial mining operation in history, blockading the enemy's main avenues of supply. An uneasy truce finally resulted in the United States disengaging itself from Vietnam in 1973. Two years later, Naval aviation was called upon to assist in the evacuation of refugees fleeing the North Vietnamese takeover of South Vietnam. In 1979, Naval air power helped rescue thousands of Indochinese who took to the high seas in poor vessels to escape mounting tyranny in their homelands.

Against the unrelenting need for vigilance was pitted a declining material inventory and difficulty in retaining experienced personnel. Much of the 1970's can hardly be called bountiful for Naval aviation. As the surplus of equipment left over from Vietnam eroded through constant use, money for replenishment was not abundant. The high inflation rate that beset the world's industrial nations plagued defense budgets and drove downward the purchasing power of military salaries. Nevertheless, Naval aviation continued to make headway in the areas of research and development.

Early in the 1970's, the Navy introduced the F-14 Tomcat, and the Marine Corps accepted the AV-8 V/STOL Harrier. At the end of the decade, a new fighter/attack aircraft, the F/A-18 Hornet, was undergoing flight trials. The submarine threat was confronted by the addition to the fleet of the light airborne multipurpose system (LAMPS) which combined shipboard electronics with the SH-2D helicopter. As 1980 drew to a close, the latest LAMPS version was under test in a new Navy airframe, the SH-60B Seahawk. Also at decade's end, the Navy's latest heavy-lift helicopter, the CH-53E, was ready for acceptance by a Marine Corps squadron. Airframes were not the only items which saw advance. The fields of electronics, missiles, and crew systems also benefitted from improvements. Finally it should be mentioned that during the seventies two nuclear supercarriers, Nimitz and Eisenhower were commissioned; a third, Carl Vinson was launched.

As Naval aviation began its eighth decade, there was no serious reason to doubt that its good record of achievement would endure. Aircraft, integrated with the fleet, would continue to provide the United States with the strongest naval power on earth.