8 Military Aviation
Lucas Mullis
8.1 Introduction
Keywords
- Vietnam war – was a conflict that took place from 1955-1975 with active US engagement for almost that entire duration of time. It was a conflict that’s interest was almost entirely rooted in outside politics where two sides backed different heads of government during the peak of the Cold War
- Korean war – a conflict that can be directly attributed to the cold war; it lasted from 1950-1953. Fought between the Communist north; and democratically backed south; hasn’t really ended, conflict has just ceased
- Military Aviation – the use of aircraft and other flying machines for the purposes of conducting or enabling warfare
- Air Force – a common term given to a nation defense sector relating to planes and flying machines (military aviation)
- Interdiction – the action of prohibiting or forbidding something; in our case a military sense; often interrupting supply lines or communication
- Turbine – a machine for producing continuous power in which a wheel or rotor, typically fitted with vanes, is made to revolve by a fast-moving flow of water, steam, gas, air, or other fluid
- Drone – a remote-controlled pilotless aircraft or small flying device; often used for surveillance
- Civil War – the war between the Union (northern states) and the Confederate states of the South, it took place between 1861–65
- The Great War (WWI) – a European conflict that took place between 1914-1918 often referred to as WWI; later brought in nations such as the United states to finish the conflict
- Crimean war – a conflict largely on the Crimean peninsula, from 1853-1855 between the Russian Empire and the British-Turkish alliance
- Cavalry – soldiers who fought on horseback
- World War II (WWII) – a conflict between 1939-1945 that engaged most of the world’s powers in a costly conflict
- Global positioning system (GPS) – an accurate worldwide navigational and surveying facility based on the reception of signals from an array of orbiting satellites
- Helicopters – a type of aircraft which derives both lift and propulsion from one or more sets of horizontally revolving overhead rotors
- Desert Storm 1 – American military codeword used to refer to the First Gulf War, an American-led military conflict which lasted between 2 August 1990 and 28 February 1991
- Desert Storm 2 – American codeword for the second Gulf War
- War on Terror – a term used to cover a large amounts of wars on Terrorism from 2001 up to today
Learning Objectives
By the end of this chapter, students should be able to:
- Compare and contrast different eras of military aviation
- Compare and contrast the different technological advancements/pace of innovation in military aviation between eras
- Understand the origins of military aviation and where it is today
- Consider the future outlook of military aviation
From the beginning of human history people have looked to the skies in awe, wondering what it would be like to be up there. As time went on hum