Inspired Aircraft

Korea, fought so far from home in an era when distances seemed greater than they do today, cried out for air mobility. In that era, too many troops were transported by sea. Today, all can be hauled from one theater to another by air.

The C-5, C-17, KC-135, KC-10 Extender tanker-transport, and the KC-46 tanker of the near future all owe something to Korea. So, too, does the C-130 Hercules tactical airlifter – and a family of variants with other missions, including special operations – which can operate on a 3,000-foot unpaved landing strip and support combat troops near the front. The design team led by Willis Hawkins at Lockheed created the C-130 precisely because a need for such an aircraft was evident to everyone who saw ground troops deployed far out in front of their logistics lines in Korea.

Similarly, if belatedly, the design of fighter aircraft had to be improved as a result of Korea. The U.S. Navy was late realizing that jet warplanes needed swept wings, thinking swept wings and slow carrier approach speeds were incompatible. The Navy never put a swept-wing aircraft into the skies over Korea, so it never was a contender in the air-to-air duels over the Yalu River between the Air Force F-86 and the Soviet MiG-15, both with swept wings. One of the Navy’s first swept-wing aircraft was a straight development of the Air Force F-86E with new nose gear, tailhook, and cannon, another was a straight-wing Panther with a new swept wing and the new name Cougar, and yet another was the F7U Cutlass, a mediocre performer that some aviators called the “F7U Useless.” Better designs followed these, and after Korea the Navy never fielded a straight-winged fighter again.

Korea taught the need to change the shape of carrier decks, too. After Korea, the straight wooden carrier deck of World War II (often made of Douglas fir) gave way to an angled flight deck to permit simultaneous launch and recovery of aircraft without the risk of collisions. The canted-deck idea actually predated Korea and originated with Britain’s Rear Adm. Dennis Campbell, but Korea gave it impetus, and in 1953 tests began aboard a modified USS Antietam (CVA 36). The post-Korea 1950s also gave the Navy larger flattops, beginning with the USS Forrestal (CVA 59). Naval warplanes, too, have gotten bigger and have gone from single- to, in most cases, twin-jet power.

“History doesn’t run in a straight line and not every lesson we learned was the right one,” said Joseph H. Fives, a California aerospace analyst who served in Korea. “But we wouldn’t be where we are today if we had not had our methods and our military hardware challenged to the limit back then. In many ways, we thought we were ready when we weren’t. In today’s world, we need to be ready to fight on a moment’s notice.”

In Korea, the MiG-15 was armed with heavy cannon, while most American fighters had less powerful machine guns. Today, every fighter in service has a 20 mm cannon. In Korea, the Air Force lacked an airlifter that could whisk troops and supplies in and out of tight airstrips close to the front line. The latest version of the C-130 has a high-tech, “glass” cockpit, new engines, a smaller crew, and “black boxes,” but it can fly into short, unprepared fields.

Fighting in Korea required a capability that the U.S. air arm hadn’t really had until then – the capability to fight at night. The Navy/Marine F3D-2 Skyknight and Air Force F-94 employed air-to-air radar to direct a fighter to an enemy plane during the nocturnal hours. So secret and so advanced was the F-94’s radar perceived to be that the aircraft initially was banned from operating over enemy terrain.

Korea told U.S. commanders they needed better tactical air reconnaissance. The Air Force’s RF-80 Shooting Star and RF-86 Sabre and the Navy’s F2H-2P Banshee and F9F-5P Panther acquired their specialized tactical recon duties in part because of the exigencies of war.

Proving that history never moves in a straight line, the first kill scored by an F-94 was an American C-119 Flying Boxcar. On May 24, 1951, the C-119 crew and passengers, caught up in an aerial emergency, bailed out and left their unmanned cargo plane flying eastward out to sea from Japan. But the C-119 refused to go down and instead turned back toward Tokyo. A pair of F-94s shot it down.

The ban on flying over enemy terrain stayed in effect until January 1952. Following a visit to Korea by USAF Chief of Staff Gen. Hoyt S. Vandenberg, F-94s began flying protective patrols 30 miles ahead of B-29 formations. On the night of Jan. 30, 1952, an F-94B flown by pilot Capt. Benjamin L. Fithian and radar operator 1st Lt. R.S. “Sam” Lyons was launched against an intruding piston-engined fighter and shot it down – apparently the first aerial victory in which adversaries were never within eyesight of each other. On May 10, 1952, another F-94 was credited with a MiG kill, the first jet-versus-jet victory at night.

Skyknights and F-94s – a postwar version of the latter was named the Starfire – proved helpful, although less than dominant. Since then, U.S. strategy has evolved and Americans prefer to fight at night, using sensors and night-vision technology inspired in part by Korea lessons. All aircraft in inventory today are capable of fighting at night and in bad weather.

Korea told U.S. commanders they needed better tactical air reconnaissance. The Air Force’s RF-80 Shooting Star and RF-86 Sabre and the Navy’s F2H-2P Banshee and F9F-5P Panther acquired their specialized tactical recon duties in part because of the exigencies of war. The Navy aircraft were carrier-based, which often meant they were closer to the problem, but none of these photo planes was fully adequate for gathering intelligence on the foe. Any kind of real-time transmission of intelligence was still years away. Following subsequent generations of tactical reconnaissance aircraft like the RF-4C Phantom II, the solution in today’s world is the ISR provided by unmanned aircraft systems, including the MQ-1B Predator and MQ-9 Reaper. Purpose-built strategic reconnaissance aircraft were a post-Korea phenomenon, including the SR-71 Blackbird and the U-2 “Dragon Lady.” The latter flies alongside its unmanned counterparts today.

 

Helicopters

Although the United States and Nazi Germany operated helicopters during World War II, rotary-wing aircraft were mostly a curiosity until the postwar era. In the United States, pioneering helicopter makers like Sikorsky, Bell, Kaman, and Piasecki offered a rich and rewarding chance for exciting work to a new generation of engineers, technicians, and pilots. They developed better helicopters. But the U.S. military’s record was uneven with respect to accepting and appreciating the new designs. With the concept of “jointness” still in the future, cooperation between service branches was also uneven. There was not enough effort made to integrate the design of a new helicopter with the equipment and support it would need to carry out a particular mission, such as medical evacuation or troop transport. By far the most important milestone in rotary-wing aviation – marrying the helicopter and the gas turbine engine – was presaged by experiments before and during the 1950-53 war, but would not become reality until post-Korea.

No military service branch was changed more by the 1950-1953 “police action” than the Army, which went to war in Korea with aircraft that were plainly inadequate. Not until the shamefully late date of February 1953 did the Army have operational H-19 helicopters on the Korean peninsula, equivalent to the HRS-1 model fielded by the Marine Corps fully two years earlier. In seeing rotary-wing aviation as a new way to direct the progress of land warfare, the Marines were pioneers, the Army laggard.

Korea changed all that. In the 1950s, the Army experimented with dozens of helicopter prototypes, including several designed to transport an individual combat soldier into battle. The Army convened several boards of general officers that studied the use of these new whirlybirds. A turning point came on Oct. 22, 1956, when test pilot Floyd Carlson made the first flight of a new gas turbine-powered helicopter, the XH-40. Today, we know this aircraft as the UH-1 Huey, and it is synonymous with the Vietnam War. Hueys have given way to Black Hawks and other types, but the role of the helicopter is now inescapably established.

Much of the credit for the Army’s turnaround goes to Gen. Hamilton Howze, considered the father of airmobile warfare. The drastic changes in Army force structure Howze called for in 1963 – to “accommodate the near revolutionary change in land combat tactics and doctrine” – led to the 1965 creation of the 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile), a new concept in combined arms that brought together infantry and helicopters in new ways and at unprecedented scale.

Much of the credit for the Army’s turnaround goes to Gen. Hamilton Howze, considered the father of airmobile warfare. The drastic changes in Army force structure Howze called for in 1963 – to “accommodate the near revolutionary change in land combat tactics and doctrine” – led to the 1965 creation of the 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile), a new concept in combined arms that brought together infantry and helicopters in new ways and at unprecedented scale. Camp Howze in Korea is named for him.

The Marines kept their initiative and developed the heavy-lift CH-53A Sea Stallion in time for the 1965 buildup in Vietnam. Three-engined CH-53E models are now in service, with a bigger, all-digital CH-53K coming. The Army chose the CH-47 Chinook as its heavy lifter, and CH-47F and MH-47G models are still being upgraded. The Marines pressed ahead with short takeoff/vertical landing aircraft, procuring the AV-8A Harrier and AV-8B Harrier II and, latterly, today’s F-35B Lightning II.

This article was first published in The Forgotten War: 60th Anniversary of the Korean War.