The primary mission of Naval Aviation was the aerial patrol of the Brazilian coastline, already officially mentioned since the EAvN regulations of 1917. The law referred to the defense of ports, reconnaissance, pursuit of enemy aircraft, attacks on fortifications, communications, depots, and other targets, as well as artillery fire observation. Seaplanes were to be auxiliary elements to surface ships. In the 1930s, experiments were already underway with possibilities such as smoke deployment for naval-tactical purposes. Despite the rise of aircraft carriers in the
interwar period, in Brazil such ships never moved beyond theoretical debate, nor did a carrier aviation branch emerge. The fleet never had a ship equipped with catapult-launched aircraft, not even among its capital ships. The Navy General Staff, in a 1939 opinion, foresaw that coastal air bases and aircraft embarked on battleships and cruisers would suffice for Brazilian needs. Naval strategists stated that "the Aviation we need for carrying out our naval operations does not need to be based on the aircraft carrier; with greater tactical and strategic advantages, consistent with the character of our operations, Naval Aviation will be based at coastal land bases". Off the record, the only Brazilian seaplane carrier was the tender
Belmonte, which embarked an NY-2 in September 1931. This would be the first embarked operation of a Brazilian Navy aircraft. In naval air operations of the time, indiscipline and lack of resources for maintenance resulted in a high mortality rate from accidents. Plane crashes were frequent news in the press. Navy officers attended in large numbers the "Wing Week" of 1936, promoted by the Army in honor of fallen aviators. The
Revista da Aviação Naval summarized the common medical problems of the profession: blindness, deafness, kidney stones, and inner ear disturbances, among others, arising from air displacement, the clash of hot and cold air currents, engine noise, rapid changes in altitude and pressure, sudden movements, body posture in flight, and fluid intake restriction. In 1939, the journal translated an article from the Italian
Rivista Aeronautica on the need for psychological monitoring of pilots.
Raids , and below, an aerial photograph of a village in Sergipe In the early years of Naval Aviation, aviators carried out long-distance flights of worldwide repercussion, the
raids. Some were undertaken by the Navy, both to make headlines and to develop the pilots' skills. The first raid of Naval Aviation was carried out by Protógenes Guimarães and Orthon Hoover in a Curtiss F on 12 October 1916. They covered the round trip between the EAvN and the Naval College of Angra dos Reis in four days, a distance that would not have required more than two hours in each direction under favorable weather: winds delayed the return trip and forced a water landing in Sepetiba Bay, where a search and rescue operation—the first for an aircraft in Brazil—was needed, along with the delivery of gasoline so they could take off again. On 4 December 1916, Guimarães and Schorcht took off in a Curtiss F bound for
Campos, with stops in
Cabo Frio,
Búzios,
Macaé, and Barcelos. A cylinder of the engine exploded over
Cabo de São Tomé, and they had to wait for the delivery of another engine in
São João da Barra. The round trip took a month, but the journey led to the creation of the Campista Aviation Club. On 15 August 1919, two Curtiss HS-2Ls flew to
Ilha Grande to deliver correspondence to the fleet during maneuvers. One of the aircraft was forced to alight near
Arpoador and was destroyed by the waves. In October of the same year, another aircraft of the same model became the first military aircraft to visit Santos, after a four-hour and twenty-minute flight. The missions also served to open commercial routes. The great South American challenge was the Rio de Janeiro–
Buenos Aires air link, which the Navy attempted in October 1920. A Macchi M-9bis flying boat, which did not belong to Naval Aviation, departed on the 6th crewed by Lieutenant Lamare and Petty Officer Antônio Joaquim da Silva Júnior. On the 20th, upon arriving in
Rio Grande, the aircraft was destroyed when the cable of the crane hoisting it from the water snapped. The route would ultimately be conquered by civilians. In September 1921, Lieutenant Petit and photographer Jorge Kfuri conducted an aerial survey over the coast and lake region of the state of Rio de Janeiro, collecting data for the preparation of hydrographic charts and organizing a support point in Cabo Frio. The photographer would later be hired for subsequent photo-surveys. On 17 June 1922, ten aircraft welcomed Portuguese aviator
Gago Coutinho at the conclusion of his
transatlantic raid Lisbon–Rio de Janeiro, the most significant of its time. Brazilian Corvette Captain Virgínio de Lamare sought government support to repeat the feat in the reverse direction. In 1923, Director Guimarães commanded four Curtiss F-5Ls, the "Íbis Squadron", in the largest raid carried out up to that time by Brazilian military aircraft, taking advantage of the power of the new models. Taking off from Ilha das Enxadas on 1 July at 10:15 a.m., they landed in
Vitória at 1:50 p.m., from where they departed the following morning at 9:00 a.m. and landed in
Salvador at 3:30 p.m., where they remained until the 18th. From there, they reached their final destination in Aracaju, from which they would begin the return trip, totaling 25 flight hours over about three thousand kilometers of distance. These were unprecedented distances that tested the pilots' endurance and were a sensation among local populations, who had never seen a seaplane before. Along the way, the aviators participated in the celebrations of the
Independence of Bahia. In Aracaju, Guimarães gave a speech on the "role of Naval Aviation in Brazil, which is not only to safeguard our coasts against possible external attacks". It would also be to encourage industry and civil aviation and, through the "constant raids of naval aviators to cities distant from the country's capital, bring them an awareness of national unity and strength". On 3 August 1926, three Avro 504Ks led by Lieutenant Commander Heitor Varady took off from Campo dos Afonsos for
Belo Horizonte. All the aircraft were lost or seriously damaged on the return trip. In 1931, Commander Schorcht took advantage of the long range of the Savoia-Marchetti S.55As, leading seven of them to represent Brazil on Argentina's national day, 9 July, and on Uruguay's Constitution Day, 18 July 1931. Two of the aircraft were lost on the return when they alighted in
Guanabara Bay, with two fatalities. From 18–22 June 1939, the students and instructors of the EAvN flew 21
Pintassilgos on a round trip to Santos.
Battles and conspiracies 1920s '' The climate of military indiscipline during the
1922 presidential election spread to naval aviators. On 28 April, a conspiracy was uncovered involving lieutenants from the Naval Aviation School to attack the entourage of President
Epitácio Pessoa during his descent from
Petrópolis to Rio de Janeiro, in coordination with sailors from the battleship
Minas Geraes, with the aim of spreading a revolt throughout the rest of the Fleet and the Army. The plot was reported by Corporal Jonas. Lieutenants Belisário Moura, Fábio de Sá Earp, Backer Azamor, Flávio dos Santos, and others were arrested, but the leader of the uprising was never identified. Aircraft were dismantled and the school was shut down. The inquiry failed to prove that the lieutenants had committed a military crime, and they were merely dismissed from Naval Aviation and transferred to
Manaus,
Recife,
Natal, and other distant garrisons. This event foreshadowed within the Navy the military movement known as
tenentism, whose first episode was the
Copacabana Fort Revolt, launched by Army officers in July of the same year. Two Curtiss HS-2L aircraft dropped bombs against
Fort Copacabana, but missed their targets. In response to the
São Paulo Revolt of 5 July 1924, Minister Alexandrino ordered that a squadron of bombing seaplanes (Curtiss F-5L) be kept on standby to operate in Rio de Janeiro. One of the seaplanes always had its crew on board. Not even the pilots knew the reason for this measure, as the government distrusted even them. To support the occupation operations along the coast of São Paulo, three Curtiss F-5L aircraft from the 1st Squadron of the Bomber Flotilla - the only operational unit - were deployed under Lieutenant Commander Schorcht. In eight days of work, ground crews managed to make four more aircraft operational, forming the 2nd Squadron. Two Curtiss HS-2L aircraft also departed. Naval Aviation conducted reconnaissance flights over
São Vicente,
Bertioga, and
Conceição de Itanhaém, as well as patrol flights over Santos. On the 19th, Lieutenant Fernando Savaget attempted to take off to intercept an enemy aircraft flying over the Fleet at Santos, but capsized in the water. Savaget managed to escape alive. The enemy,
tenentist leader
Eduardo Gomes, left the area under anti-aircraft fire. In August, two Curtiss MF aircraft accompanied the Northern Detachment, a task force charged with ascending the
Amazon River and suppressing another rebellion, the Manaus Commune. The only effective obstacle was Fort Óbidos. On the 24th, after the fort's defenders were ordered to surrender, the two seaplanes took off from
Santarém and bombed the surroundings of the enemy position, under orders not to damage the city. The following day the fort was occupied without resistance: the entire garrison deserted during the night. This marked the decisive moment in the defeat of the movement. In Rio de Janeiro, Director Protógenes' conspiracy to incite the Fleet continued. On the scheduled date - the night of 20–21 October 1924 - Lieutenant Commander Esculápio Cezar de Paiva seized command of the Naval Aviation Center on
Governador Island. Nearly all the officers, with the exception of the commanding officer, Graça Aranha, were part of the movement. Esculápio mobilized the garrison, informed them of the imminent revolt, and outlined the plans: the torpedo boat
Goyaz would pick up the personnel and take them to the Aviation School, where they would meet other sympathizers. An N-9 aircraft would fly over
Vila Militar to signal allied Army officers, and a group of F-5 aircraft would bomb the
Catete Palace, the Ministry of the Navy, and other locations "in order to compel the President of the Republic to leave office'. When the expected signal for the uprising did not come, he demobilized the garrison and ordered the destruction of all evidence. Weeks after the Protógenes conspiracy was uncovered, on 4 November, Navy officers mutinied aboard the battleship
São Paulo. Other conspirators attempted to incite Naval Aviation but managed little more than to get a Curtiss N-9H airborne and, together with comrades from the Naval School, take control of the torpedo boat
Goyaz. Sergeant-pilot Bráulio Gouveia, in possession of the N-9, joined the rebels aboard
São Paulo and tied the aircraft to the ship's stern. A shell sank the seaplane, but the ship continued on toward the open sea. Commander Carlos Alves de Souza, director of the Naval Aviation School, received orders to attack the battleship. Three F-5L aeroboats armed with bombs were dispatched, but without success. In the following days, reconnaissance flights from Rio de Janeiro and Florianópolis failed to locate the battleship, which had taken refuge in
Montevideo. As a result of the insubordinations, the government imposed the previously mentioned punishment on the Naval Aviation budget.
1930s In October 1931, an NY-2 embarked aboard the
Belmonte conducted reconnaissance flights over Recife following a revolt in the 21st Battalion of
Caçadores. In January of the following year, two Martin PM-1B and four SM.55A were deployed to
João Pessoa as a precaution against the risk of another uprising, but it was not necessary to employ the aircraft. During the
Constitutionalist Revolution of 1932, some naval aviators went to São Paulo to join the rebels. The remainder of Naval Aviation remained loyal to the government, serving under the direct operational control of the naval authorities. It operated in support of the Fleet, in the naval blockade of the
Port of Santos and in the operations of the Mato Grosso Flotilla, and cooperated with Military Aviation in the
Paraíba Valley and on the southern front. The units employed were the 18th Observation Division, with four Vought 02V-2A Corsair; the Independent Mixed Flotilla of Patrol Aircraft, with three Martin PM and seven Savoia Marchetti S.55A; and an additional twelve de Havilland DH 60 and two Avro 504 for liaison, reconnaissance, and observation. The air war was serious, and the rebel forces possessed armed aircraft. Operations at Santos began on 12 July, with the deployment of three Savoia Marchetti and two Martin PM to Vila Bela, on
São Sebastião Island. The landing strip was later extended to receive two Vought Corsair. The mission was to support the blockade of the Port of Santos. The aircraft flew liaison and mail missions between Rio de Janeiro and the coast of São Paulo and, in the very first days, overflew cities in São Paulo state, dropping newspapers from Rio de Janeiro and the
Imprensa Nacional. On 13 July, a low-level overflight over Santos caused the population to pour into the streets in fear of a bombing. In support of the Army, three attempts to attack
Cubatão in July produced no significant results. The small bomb load was unable to paralyze the power plant that supplied São Paulo's industries. A larger round of patrol, reconnaissance, and attack flights along the São Paulo coast coincided with the intensification of the ground offensive in the second half of August. Two attacks on Fort Itaipu in early September destroyed several guns. In the second attack, more than 1.1 tons of bombs were dropped. Two Corsair aircraft were kept on alert at Galeão to support Military Aviation in the Paraíba Valley. Although designated for observation and bombing, they ultimately served as escorts. In the
Paraty–
Cunha region, the aircraft supported the offensive of the
Marine Corps. On 18 July, two Corsair were fired upon by anti-aircraft guns and intercepted a rebel Potez aircraft, which escaped into cloud cover–a rare encounter with enemy aviation. On the 21st, the patrol succeeded in attacking a mortar battery. On 12 August, two Corsair were deployed to Faxina (present-day
Itapeva), on the southern front of the conflict. A third was damaged during a transfer on the 20th. In Mato Grosso, Avro 504 aircraft arrived in August in response to a Falcon of the São Paulo aviation that had been attacking the monitor
Pernambuco on the
Paraguay River. However, these aircraft were operationally inferior to the Falcon and did not engage in combat. On 22 January 1933, in response to the
Colombia–Peru War, three Fairey Gordon aircraft from the 4th DEB departed for the border town of
Tabatinga, Amazonas. The journey was long and arduous, including the loss of one of the aircraft. From
Belém onward, the trip was made aboard a merchant ship, owing to a lack of suitable weather conditions and refueling facilities. The stay in Tabatinga was difficult but uneventful. In December of the following year, another detachment departed for
Ladário to ensure Brazilian neutrality in a neighboring conflict, the
Chaco War, which had already resulted in an attack on a Brazilian merchant vessel. Five Boeing 256 and six Corsair aircraft, under the command of Commander Fernando Vitor Savaget, flew patrols in the region.
Aerial demonstrations In January 1932, three Boeing 256 aircraft were sent to
Montevideo for the inauguration ceremony of the local airport. Under the leadership of Lieutenant Commander Djalma Cordovil Petit, they were organized into a Demonstration Squadron, which was showcased in all regions of the country over the following two years. On 22 April 1934, it represented Naval Aviation at the closing of the First National Congress of Aeronautics, held at Campo de Marte. Commander Petit decided to perform a solo display, began a looping maneuver, and struck the ground almost vertically. The death of its leader led to the dissolution of the squadron.
Aerial navigation Until the 1930s, air navigation relied on nautical or geographical charts produced by the Engineering Club, at a scale of one to one million, supplemented by pilots' own reference notes. In April 1934, the Ministry of the Navy appointed Commander Virgínio de Lamare to organize aerial navigation charts of the coastline and the interior, with Naval Aviation providing support for field surveys. Survey flights began with a Fairey Gordon on the Angra dos Reis–
Guaratiba leg. Cartographers and technicians examined aeronautical charts from the United States and other countries to define the desired specifications.
Air mail The first military air mail service in Brazil was the Fleet Air Mail (
Correio Aéreo da Esquadra), which emerged in 1919 from the operational needs of exercises on Ilha Grande. In 1934 it was absorbed into a broader service, the Naval Air Mail (
Correio Aéreo Naval – CAN), equivalent to the Army's Military Air Mail, but with destinations largely restricted to the coastal belt. The Naval Air Mail served to link naval air bases, to satisfy aviators' desire to fly beyond Rio de Janeiro, to serve locations not covered by commercial airline routes, and to integrate the national territory by connecting the Navy–and the government itself–with local communities, some of them in places not reached by ships. In this respect, it was less consequential than the Army's Military Air Mail, as it served less isolated localities, many of which were already reached by river and lake cabotage. The first flight took place on the
Galeão–
Santos–
Paranaguá–
Florianópolis route, carried out by a Waco aircraft in 1934. The service received its definitive organization on 29 July 1936, becoming a permanent and specialized service under the authority of the Directorate-General of Aeronautics. Pilots flew Waco CSO and CPF F5 seaplanes and Waco F-5, Waco CJC, and Beechcraft D-17A landplanes. They collected mail from localities adjacent to the trunk line, transferred it to the aircraft operating on that line, and carried out the reverse process. From 1936 onward, there was a trunk line Rio–Santos–Florianópolis–Rio Grande, and at each node, feeder routes: from Rio to
Angra,
Marambaia,
Cabo Frio,
Macaé, and
Campos; from Santos to
Ubatuba,
São Sebastião,
Iguape, and
Cananeia; from Florianópolis to
Joinville,
São Francisco,
Blumenau,
Tijucas,
Laguna,
Tubarão, and
Araranguá; and from Rio Grande to
Conceição do Arroio,
Porto Alegre,
Mostardas,
Pelotas, and
Vitória do Palmar. There were plans to extend the trunk line northward to
Manaus and to establish inland routes, but these never operated on a regular basis. == Legacy ==