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Ascout is a type ofUnited States Navy aircraft whose name derives from the scout cruisers used by the US Navy for similar roles, including screening (escorting) the fleet against enemy forces and was often combined with other roles, such as artillery spotting, reconnaissance and bombing to which the role is often conflated.
Scouts first made their appearances duringWorld War I. The United Kingdom'sRoyal Naval Air Service, keen on developing the new medium of aerial warfare, converted a number of vessels asseaplane tenders for scouting purposes. Similarly,battleships began to mount short flight decks on top of gun turrets, enabling small single seat aircraft to take-off from them. Initially these single-seater "scouts", having no floats to land on and having no landing deck to return to, either had to find dry land for landing, or else had to ditch onto the sea. During World War I, other more satisfactory (although still clumsy) solutions had been found, in which turret platforms, and later (when aircraft got heavier)catapults were mounted on battleships,cruisers and seaplane tenders, used to launch scout planes. These aircraft never carried radios and rarely had cameras but could carry bombs, or could be armed to intercept enemy aircraft.
Meanwhile, theaircraft carriers were also introduced, and these initially carried similar scouts, but eventually distinguished this function from other roles, such as "scout bombers", such as theDouglas SBD Dauntless and "scout observation" such as theCurtiss SOC Seagull, and the term lost meaning, becoming a generic term for a US Navy aircraft. This gave rise to the term "scout trainer", including theNorth American SNJ,Beechcraft SNB, andVultee SNV series of aircraft which had no offensive or defence fleet roles. Neither the SNB nor the SNJ operated from ships, while only specialized versions of the SNJ did, and mainly on the Great Lakes, for training.
DuringWorld War II, observation-scouts were essential for battleships and other surface warships during bombardment of land targets. An observation-scout, such as aVought OS2U Kingfisher, would spot the fall of ship's shots, and provide corrections, while scout trainers provided flying training.
Due to the improved technology used by today's naval vessels, and the use of ship-launchedUAVs for the same sorts of "spotting" missions in the 21st century, scouts are no longer needed for long range exchanges.[1]