The start of jet operations in US Navy.

Frode Hansen wrote:

Ogden Johnson III wrote:

[snips]

[Why do I suspect that the statement isn't supported by a
footnoted/endnoted citation?]

You just gave me the answer actually, as the footnote included an URL to
an article. So I can answer it myself:

(The quoted article I questioned can be found on p 25 in Naval War
College Review Vol 59 no 4, autumn 2006, also available he
http://www.nwc.navy.mil/press/review...s/NWCRAU06.pdf )

Source quoted for the paragraph mentioned is an article by Sandra Erwin
in National Defense Magazine oct 2000:
http://www.nationaldefensemagazine.o.../Navy_Aims.htm

There the sentence reads:

...."In 1954, said Dirren, the Navy lost 776 airplanes, an average of
two a day. But even though fewer planes are lost in accidents today, the
cost of naval aircraft has gone up so much that the financial
implications of mishaps are more significant than ever, he explained.
“We lost 22 in 1999. But those 22 airplanes were worth 10 times what the
776 airplanes were worth in 1954,” he said. The A4 Skyhawks were
$240,000 a copy. Today’s premier naval fighter-bomber, the F/A-18E/F,
costs $57 million.

Back in those days, said Dirren, such high rates of mishaps were
acceptable and viewed as “the cost of doing business.”....

The "master jet aviation"-bit seems to be added by Erickson/Wilson to
illustrate the difficulties of carrier operations.
Anyway, I have to assume these are correct numbers.

OK, they observed good practice in footnoting. They also engaged
in bad writing, and possibly thinking. Their statement you
quoted said 800 airplanes, jets, lost in carrier operations.
Their footnoted statement said that the Navy lost 776 airplanes.
Absent any breakdown, one has to presume that the 776 figure
includes aircraft of all types, jet and prop, lost in all phases
of Navy flight operations, land-based and carrier-based.

I don't have time to research this, but assuming, for ease of
calculation, for 1954 a breakdown of prop vs jet of 50/50, and
an operational breakdown of 50/50 land-based/carrier-based, the
776 is reduced to 338 jets, and further to 194 carrier-based
jets. Left uncalculated is the number of mishaps in
take-off/landing operations, which would be where "carrier
operations" makes a real difference, and enroute travel,
simulated air-to-air combat, simulated air-to-ground, etc.
operations, in which carrier based vs land based makes no
difference. Fixating on a target and flying too low to recover
from your dive is no different vis-a-vis the type of aircraft you
are flying or where you started your flight and intended to end
your flight. It still kills you and breaks the aircraft.

It was a stretch to convert that to 'In 1954 alone, in working to
master jet aviation off carriers, the U.S. Navy lost nearly eight
hundred aircraft' Misleading at best, outright fudging the
numbers to support your postulation at worst.
--
OJ III