In the coming year, Naval Aviation will reach its centennial. In those 100 years, Naval Aviation has grown from a marginal force fulfilling a niche role in the nation's military strategy, to the centerpiece combat force that is powerfully and uniquely well-suited to conduct expeditionary operations and lethal sea-based power projection. This transformation resulted when visionary men and women looked beyond the obvious realm of the possible and into the promise of the future. That over-the-horizon focal point continues today, ensuring that Naval Aviation's support of our defense and naval strategies is significant, relevant, and uninterrupted. The importance of Naval Aviation is founded on the Navy and Marine Corps partnership. From deployed Marine expeditionary units and aviation combat elements embarked aboard amphibious assault ships conducting expeditionary operations ashore, to Navy and Marine Corps fixed-wing and rotary-wing aircraft embarked aboard aircraft carriers streaming alongside surface combatants as part of carrier strike groups, Naval Aviation is ideally suited to carry out the national security strategy in any maritime conflict. On 8 May 1911, Captain Washington Irving Chambers, the officer in charge of aviation, requisitioned the Navy's first aircraft-an A-1 Triad-from aviator and inventor Glenn H. Curtis. This aircraft first flew on 1 July 1911. The following year, the first Marine Corps aviator reported for duty, launching Marine Corps Aviation. Nearly a century later, the Navy's newest aircraft, the P-8A Poseidon, flew for the first time on 25 April 2009. This book shares the vision of today's Naval Aviation leaders, extending the earliest plans for Naval Aviation from 1911 into the year 2032 and beyond. It underscores our focus on current readiness, the future capabilities and readiness necessary for the fleet of the future, and the people who form the cornerstone of all our successes. Naval Aviation is a warfighting force that is an integral part of the ability of the Navy, Marine Corps, and joint forces to deter or win regional conflicts and major power wars. Our aircraft carriers, amphibious assault ships, carrier air wings, aviation combat elements, and maritime patrol and reconnaissance forces maintain a combat-ready posture that is deployed forward as an instrument of our national power. We understand the importance of cooperative multinational relationships because no one nation has the resources required to guarantee the complete safety of the world's oceans and the airspace above them. Although our foremost responsibility is the projection of sea-based combat power, we also embrace the responsibility to provide humanitarian assistance and disaster relief throughout the world. Naval Aviation is a warfighting enterprise that will continue to develop, deliver, and sustain the aircraft, weapons, and systems our Sailors and Marines need to serve America in defense of freedom. We embrace the privilege of this awesome responsibility with pride, determination, and enthusiasm.
