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UNITED STATES NAVAL AVIATION 1910-1995

revised to incorporate the steam catapult and the

angled deck, together representing the most significant

advance in aircraft carrier operating capability since

World War II.

In a period when Naval Aviation was called upon

to demonstrate its continuing usefulness in war and

its particular versatility in adapting to new combat

requirements, it also moved forward toward new

horizons.

1950

10 January Norton Sound departed Port Hueneme

on a 19-day cruise in Alaskan waters where it

launched two Aerobees, one Lark, and one Loon, and

tested an auxiliary propulsion system for the Lark

under severe conditions. In addition to its crew, the

ship carried 27 observers representing the Army, Navy,

and Air Force, including 8 scientists connected with

the Aerobee upper atmosphere research program.

13 January In the first successful automatic homing

flight of a surface-to-air guided missile, a Lark, CTV-N-

10, launched at the Naval Air Missile Test Center,

NAMTC Point Mugu, Calif., passed within lethal range

of its target, an F6F drone, making the simulated inter-

ception at a range of 17,300 yards and an altitude of

7,400 feet.

7 February In a demonstration of carrier long-range

attack capabilities, a P2V-3C Neptune, with

Commander Thomas Robinson in command, took off

from Franklin D. Roosevelt off Jacksonville, Fla., and

flew over Charleston, S.c., the Bahamas, the Panama

Canal, up the coast of Central America and over

Mexico to land next day at the Municipal Airport, San

Francisco, Calif. The flight, which covered 5,060 miles

in 25 hours, 59 minutes, was the longest ever made

from a carrier deck.

8 March Operation Portrex, the largest peacetime

maneuvers in history and the first to employ airborne

troops in an amphibious operation, was brought to a

climax with a combined amphibious and airborne

assault on Vieques Island. The Joint Armed Service

Exercise, which began 20 February and extended

through 14 March, was staged to evaluate joint service

doctrine for combined operations, to service test new

equipment under simulated combat conditions, and to

provide training for the defense forces of the

Caribbean Command.

10 March The Secretary of Defense announced that

the Bureau of Aeronautics, under a research program

begun in 1946, had developed a new lightweight tita-

nium alloy for use in jet aircraft engines. The alloy was

described as being as strong as high-strength steel and

only half as heavy, highly resistant to corrosion, and

so composed as to retain its basic properties at high

temperatures.

22 March The submarine Cusk (SS 348), from a

position off the Naval Air Missile Test Center, NAMTC

Point Mugu, Calif., launched a Loon guided missile

and, at the midway point of a 50-mile flight, surren-

dered control to the guidance station on San Nicolas

Island. This station completed the first successful

operation involving transfer of guidance by splashing

the missile 360 yards from the center of the target,

Begg Rock.

1 April The Naval Air Rocket Test Station, Lake

Denmark, N.J., was established, superseding the Naval

Aeronautical Rocket Laboratory, for the purposes of

testing and evaluating rocket engines, components

and propellants, and training service personnel in han-

dling, servicing and operating rocket engines.

8 April A PB4Y Privateer of VP-26, with 10 men on

board, was lost over the Baltic Sea after being attacked

by Soviet aircraft.

18 April The experimental model of the Consoli-

dated Vultee P5Y, a 60-ton seaplane, passed its initial

flight test at San Diego, Calif. The plane was

equipped with four Alison T-40 turboprop engines,

each rated at 5,500 hp and each turning IS-foot contra-

rotating propellers.

21 April The first carrier takeoff with the AJ-l heavy

attack plane was made from Coral Sea by Captain

John T. Hayward, commanding VC-5.

TIle AJ-l, carner-based heavy attack plane 197506