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.

The Douglas SBD Dauntless was the venerable American naval diver bomber of World War 2 and is perhaps best known for destroying the heart of the unbeaten Japanese aircraft carrier fleet of the war — the Kido Butai.

In just six minutes, they handed the Japanese a blow from which they would never recover. They destroyed the Japanese aircraft carriers during the Battle of Midway the Akagi, Kaga, Sōryū, and then later on in the day the remaining Hiryū (plus a heavy cruiser for good measure). Nearly 6,000 were produced and the last of them were retired in Mexico in 1959.

The Vought F4U Corsair was an American fighter that was used extensively throughout America’s involvement in the Second World War and through to the Korean War. It was produced from 1942-1953 and was in service in the United States until it was retired in 1953 but continued to see foreign use until Honduras finally retired theirs in 1979.

The Corsair was designed for carrier operations. It became one of the ablest carrier-based fighter bombers of the war, and it is reported that it achieved an impressive kill ratio of 11:1.

The Grumman F6F Hellcat was a mass-produced American WW2 fighter that became famous as a well-designed and rugged carrier fighter. It was able to outperform the Japanese A6M Zero, as well its faster US cousin, the Corsair.

The Hellcat had a very impressive production with over 12,000 aircraft being built during the later years of the war from 1943 to 1945. They were also used in the French and Royal Navies.