Team Navy

For more than 100 years, highly trained men and women working together have been key to the U.S. Navy’s effectiveness across the globe.

For seven years of active service and four more in the Reserves, I had the privilege to serve as a Naval Flight Officer in the Grumman F-14 Tomcat. Whatever else I might do with my life, I’ll always “bleed” Navy. My days as a Naval Officer gave me a measure of skill and confidence I’m not sure I could have received from any other career. Carrier aviation changes you for the better. (The one exception is particularly difficult night landings—those tend to age you prematurely!) You must learn, quickly, to navigate the potential hazards of carrier flight operations. There are other challenges. You’re putting in long hours (working at sea isn’t a 9-to-5 job); you’re away from your family on lengthy deployments; and you’re enduring the physical strain of jet flight (it wasn’t uncommon to come back from a high-G training mission soaked in sweat).

What made carrier life easier was being part of a team working toward a common goal. Typically, after a deployment gets under way, a fighter squadron becomes the proverbial well-oiled machine at the tip of the spear. But even when you and the other aviators you fly with do everything right, you won’t succeed if others on the carrier aren’t doing their best. Every time I went up in the Tomcat, I knew I was putting my life in the hands of the mechanics who took care of my aircraft. There were people who specialized in maintaining the F-14’s life-support systems, including the ejection seats. Ordnance technicians made sure our air-to-air missiles were good to go. And as a radar intercept officer, I couldn’t have done my job if an avionics specialist hadn’t kept the F-14’s nose-mounted radar working flawlessly.

To get a sense of the people who work as mechanics in the U.S. Navy, read our interview with Amanda Lee. Lee is the first female demonstration pilot to fly a jet with the Blue Angels. She is currently a lieutenant commander, but she started out in the Navy’s enlisted ranks—as a maintainer for the aircraft she now flies, the Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornet. Few people have the long list of qualifications necessary to be a Blue Angels demo pilot—men or women. Lee’s achievement took years of hard work, and she’d be justified in boasting about her accomplishments, but she doesn’t. Instead, she frames her success as part of a larger team effort.

Teamwork in the Navy is nothing new of course. Our Summer Issue includes a story on the golden age of flying boats. Both civil and military versions of these aircraft required large crews to keep them running. Our writer, Dave Kindy, spoke with Cash Barber, a 100-year-old Navy veteran who was a crew chief on Consolidated PBY Catalinas in World War II’s Pacific theater. Assigned to VP-11, known as the Black Cats, Barber and his crewmates flew black-painted PBYs at night to hunt for Japanese naval vessels.

Barber, who retired as a lieutenant commander after 30-plus years in the Navy, now volunteers one day a week as a docent at the National Naval Aviation Museum in Pensacola, Florida. On Tuesdays, he talks to visitors about the two PBYs on display there (one of them is on loan from the National Air and Space Museum). His admiration for the Catalina is evident, as is his pride in being part of a flying boat crew that helped keep the country safe during wartime. I am equally proud of his accomplishments, as is a grateful nation that will forever appreciate his service and sacrifice.

Christopher U. Browne is the John and Adrienne Mars Director of the National Air and Space Museum.

This article is from the Summer 2024 issue of Air & Space Quarterly, the National Air and Space Museum's signature magazine that explores topics in aviation and space, from the earliest moments of flight to today. Explore the full issue.

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