Naval aviation

Naval aviation is the application of military air power by navies, either from warships that can embark aircraft (e.g. aircraft carriers, amphibious assault ships and aircraft cruisers) or from coastal naval air stations. It often involves navalised aircraft, specifically designed for naval use. Seaborne aviation encompasses similar activities not restricted to navies, including marines and coast guards, such as in U.S. naval aviators. As with most army aviation units, naval aviation units are generally separate from a nation's dedicated air force.

Naval aviation operations are typically projected by way of carrier-based aircraft, which must be sturdy enough to withstand the demands of shipborne operations at sea. They must be able to take off from a short runway (typically the flight deck of an aircraft carrier) and be sturdy and flexible enough to come to a sudden stop when landing; they typically have robust folding or swinging wings that reduce the occupied space and thus allow more of them to be stored in below-decks hangars and limited parking spaces on flight decks. These aircraft are designed for many tactical purposes, including aerial combat, airstrike/close air support, anti-submarine warfare, early warning, search and rescue, matériel transport, weather observation, patrol and reconnaissance, and wide-area command and control duties.

Naval aviation first started in the mid-19th century with the use of aerostats such as balloons tethered to balloon tenders, later the use of powered ship-launched airships, for both observation and firebombing, until these were superseded by propeller-powered seaplanes launched from seaplane carriers during the First World War. By the end of the Second World War, aircraft carrier-launched fixed-wing aircraft such as dive bombers and torpedo bombers had dramatically changed the nature of naval warfare, leading to the decline of gun-oriented battleships as fleet capital ships. Nowadays, naval helicopters are used ubiquitously as VTOL aircraft by most navies and perform many of the same missions as fixed-wing aircraft, although the latter have the advantages of significantly faster airspeed, longer operational ranges and heavier payloads. However, helicopters and other VSTOL aircraft (tiltrotor, autogyros and thrust-vectoring jump jets) can be readily operated from aircraft carriers, helicopter carriers, amphibious warfare ships and aviation-capable surface combatants equipped with stern helipad such as cruisers, destroyers, frigates and even some corvettes, while fixed-wing aircraft can only be operated from large carriers with a sufficiently long flight deck and mandatorily also STOL-assisting devices such as ski-jump/catapults, arresting gears and optical landing systems.