The US Navy has produced some of the world’s best naval aircraft and exported them to allies all around the world. They operated some of the very best naval aircraft during WW2, following that, the likes of the F-4 Phantom and the F-14 Tomcat continued that tradition during the Cold War. Today the Navy’s advanced F-18 Super Hornet and the brand new F-35C Lightning II are perhaps without equal in navies around the world.
The US Naval air force is in its own right one of the largest and most powerful air forces in the world. The U.S. Marine Corps is its sister service who also operates more aircraft of its own. The Navy operates some 532 Boeing F/A-18E/Fs alone — that is more than the total number of aircraft in service for most air forces around the world.
Here are the Navy’s top aircraft carrier-based aircraft during its history.