certainly had much to do with the decision. Whatever the reason, Secretary Cheney ordered the program canceled in January of 1991, just as the Desert Storm air campaign was getting under way. So sudden was this action that several thousand General Dynamics and McDonnell Douglas employees were simply told to put down their work and go home. All told, the Navy had spent something like $3.8 billion, and did not have a single plane to show for it.[46] Even worse was the total wrecking of the Navy's aircraft acquisition plan, which had seen so many other new aircraft programs canceled to support the A-12.[47]
It did not take long for the fleet to begin suffering the consequences of the A-12 debacle. The Navy tried to make a fresh start with a program called A/FX (Attack/Fighter, Experimental), which was designed to replace the A- 6 and the F-14 fleets, both of which were aging rapidly. A/FX would have made use of the systems developed for the A-12, but would not attempt to achieve the level of stealth planned for the Avenger. Unfortunately, in the tight budget climate of the early 1990's, there was little support or money for the A/FX program, and it died before a prime contractor team was selected. Another blow to the naval aviation community came at the beginning of the Clinton Administration, when Secretary of Defense Les Aspin, as a cost-cutting measure, decided to prematurely retire the entire fleet of A-6E/ KA-6D Intruder attack/refueling aircraft. Within months, the entire medium-attack community was wiped out, leaving the F/A-18 as the Navy's only strike aircraft, and only a single high-performance Naval aircraft was in development: an evolved/growth version of the Hornet. With nothing else on the horizon, Naval aviation was going to have to bet the farm on a machine called the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet.
New Paradigms: The Road Back
By late 1995, naval aviation had hit rock bottom. Military analysts were beginning to believe that the Navy had forgotten how to develop and buy new weapons and aircraft. In fact, many were questioning if the Navy should let the USAF buy their aircraft, since they seemed so much better at it. The real doomsayers were projecting the end of naval aviation as we know it sometime in the early 21st century, when the existing aircraft would wear out and have to be retired. But these people did not know the true character of naval aviation leadership. Though the Navy's aviation problems were deadly serious, in 1996 naval aviation took the first steps toward putting itself back on a healthy course.
Even before he became Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Jay Johnson was already working toward this goal. He started by appointing two of his most trusted officers, Rear Admirals Dennis McGinn and 'Carlos' Johnson (no relation to the CNO), to key leadership positions as the heads of NAVAIR and the Naval Aviation Office in the Pentagon known as N88. Soon they started to shake things up. They began to promote a new vision for naval aviation, in direct support of the Navy's 'Forward from the Sea' doctrine, and to develop a realistic long-range plan for upgrading Naval aviation and developing new capabilities. The two men also saw the need to put a few good naval aviators in key positions within the Pentagon so that the procurement program problems of the past would not be repeated. They knew that people with real talent would need to be in some of the key staff jobs to help get new ideas into naval aviation.
As a consequence of this kind of thinking, the Navy Strike Warfare Directorate (N880-the group that defines future specifications and capabilities for new naval aircraft and weapons systems) came under the inspired leadership of a talented F/A-18 Hornet driver, Captain Chuck Nash. While he probably could have gone on to command his own CVW, he chose the good of the service over his own ambitions, and took charge of N880 in the Pentagon.
It was Chuck Nash who really started to shake things up for naval aviation in 1996. Under his leadership, support from the fleet was focused on the new Super Hornet, in an effort to ensure that there would be at least
At the same time, Nash increased Navy support for other developmental aircraft programs like the V-22 Osprey and Joint Strike Fighter (JSF), as well as a new Common Support Aircraft (CSA) to replace the S-3 Viking, E-2 Hawkeye, and C-2 Greyhound airframes.
To shore up the existing force of carrier aircraft, he helped start a program to equip the fleet of F-14 Tomcat interceptors with the same AAQ-14 LANTIRN targeting pod used on the USAF F-15E Strike Eagle. LANTIRN pods allow Tomcats to carry out precision strikes with LGBs and other weapons ashore, a completely new mission for them. In order to arm the Tomcats, the Navy was directed to procure a stock of highly accurate Paveway III- SERIES LGBs, as well as the deadly BLU-109/I-2000 penetrating warheads. Nash's office also began to contract for modifications to existing precision weapons like the AGM-84E SLAM, so that their range, lethality, and service lives might be further extended.
Finally, N880 took a leadership position with the other services on a new generation of precision-strike weapons. These would be guided to their targets by GPS navigation systems, and then given final guidance by a new family of self-locking, all-weather seeker systems.
By the time he retired in early 1998, Chuck Nash had done more for Naval aviation as a captain than most admirals. As a result of the programs inspired by the likes of Jay Johnson, Dennis McGinn, 'Carlos' Johnson, Chuck Nash, and
Today the climate in the fleet and naval aviation program offices is very different. Much like their counterparts at NAVSEA, the leaders at the Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR) are now looking toward the future rather than back toward the past. Their goal is to produce the aircraft and weapons that will fly off the new generation of carriers that are due in the middle of the second decade of the next century. For the first time in a generation, Naval aviation leaders are not content to run programs and buy updated versions of old aircraft and weapons. Naval aviation's vision is now on the cutting edge of weapons technology.
To this end, a new aircraft, the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet, is being tested and headed into the fleet, while existing aircraft like the F-14 Tomcat, EA-6B Prowler, and S-3B Viking have been modified to take on new roles and missions. These will help maintain the credibility of naval aviation until the new aircraft types arrive in a few years. New weapons, with greater precision and utility than those used in Desert Storm, are on their way as well. The sea services, along with the other branches of the U.S. military, are in the early stages of developing the replacement for today's aircraft through the new JSF program. There are even visionary studies for the first generation of Unmanned Aerial Combat Vehicles (UCAVs), which will likely be seen in ten to twenty years. What a difference just a few years make!
The Plan: Naval Aviation in the 21st Century
The plan for naval aviation as it heads into the 21st century is designed to take carrier aviation from the current post-Cold War CVW structure to one that reflects the perceived needs of the Navy in 2015. To do this, NAVAIR has put together a three-stage program of procurement and reorganization that relies heavily on the success of the past-and that learns from the mistakes that were made. Back in the early 1970's, the so-called 'CV Air Wing' organization was created to reduce the number of carriers and air groups in the fleet. This type of CVW was an all-purpose unit, with capabilities in antiair warfare (AAW), antisubmarine warfare (ASW), antisurface
