Russian naval aviation began with the purchase of several seaplanes abroad in 1911. Soon, domestic aircraft designers created several types of flying boats, which in the First World War were used for bombing and bombarding naval bases and ports, ships and vessels at sea, and even for destroying enemy aircraft in the air.
In July 1917, two air divisions were formed - in the Baltic and the Black Sea, and the Naval Aviation and Aeronautics Directorate was created in the military department. During the Civil War, seaplane detachments appeared in the Volga, Caspian and other flotillas. In total, 19 naval aviation detachments fought on the fronts of the civil war.
In the pre-war period, naval pilots explored the polar latitudes, took part in the rescue of polar explorers. The Gold Star of the Hero of the Soviet Union No. 1 was awarded to the naval pilot Anatoly Vasilyevich Lyapidevsky.
During the Great Patriotic War, naval aviation pilots were the first to strike Berlin in August 1941. In the order of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief on this occasion, it was said that the naval aviation was the first to pave the way to Victory.
During the war years, naval pilots flew more than 35 thousand sorties, destroyed more than 5, 5 thousand enemy aircraft in the air and at airfields. From their attacks, fascist Germany and its allies lost 407 warships and 371 transport vehicles with troops and cargo, which accounted for two-thirds of the total enemy losses from attacks by the Navy.
In the postwar years, naval aviators continued to improve their combat skills, to master new military equipment. It was the pilot of the North Sea, Yuri Alekseevich Gagarin, who first paved the way for mankind to the stars. During this period, new types of naval aviation appeared - naval missile-carrying and anti-submarine, with the simultaneous improvement of reconnaissance aviation.
A fundamentally new direction was the creation of naval attack aircraft with vertical take-off and landing and the construction of aircraft-carrying cruisers "Kiev", "Minsk" and "Novorossiysk".
Unfortunately, in recent years, naval aviation has noticeably and steadily degraded through no fault of its own,”Anatoly Tsyganok, head of the Center for Military Forecasting, Corresponding Member of the Academy of Military Sciences, told SP correspondents. - Lack of funding and development of new shipborne aircraft technology threw it far back. Take, for example, only the number. If before the Great Patriotic War in the aviation of the Navy there were more than 1000 only fighters, today all the aircraft in the Navy are 217 plus 102 helicopters. These are mainly Tu-22M, Il-38, An-12, Su-24, Ka-27. Everything was developed in the era of "deep stagnation", practically exhausted its resource, and new technology is not expected. Most of the problems are with naval missile aircraft. There is nowhere to train pilots. From day to day, Ukraine is expected to abandon the contract for the operation of the NITKA ground training complex in the Crimea, which imitates the deck of an aircraft-carrying cruiser for training deck aviation pilots, and is used by the crews of the naval aviation regiment of the Northern Fleet of the Russian Navy in training takeoff and landing without risking life. Then even on old airplanes there will be no place to teach our naval pilots to fly.
On Naval Aviation Day, I would like to bow deeply to our naval pilots for the fact that, even in the current most difficult conditions, they continue to maintain the basis of this kind of fleet forces until better times.
Dossier
Currently, there are 35,000 people in the naval military aviation, 217 aircraft, 102 helicopters.
Missile bombers: 45 Tu-22M. Fighter-attack aircraft: 52 Su-24, 10 Su-25, 52 Su-27. Anti-submarine and reconnaissance aircraft: 1 Tu-142, 26 Il-38, 4 Be-12. Military transport aircraft: 18 An-12, 37 An-12, An-24, An-26. Anti-submarine helicopters: 3 Mi-14, 72 Ka-27. Military transport, transport and landing helicopters: 8 Mi-8. Multipurpose transport-combat / attack helicopters: 12 Ka-29, 15 Mi-24.
The Northern Fleet has 50 combat aircraft and 44 combat helicopters.
The Baltic Fleet has 55 combat aircraft and 41 combat helicopters.
The Black Sea Fleet has 35 combat aircraft and 13 combat helicopters.
The Pacific Fleet has 55 combat aircraft and 26 combat helicopters.
In 1941, there were 368 aircraft in the Baltic, 346 in the Black Sea Fleet, 49 in the North, and 665 in the Pacific.
