An aircraft carrier is a floating city, but it’s not self-sufficient. It relies on a constant supply of personnel, mail, and mission-critical spare parts flown in from shore, a mission the Navy calls Carrier Onboard Delivery. By the 1970s, that mission was stretched to the breaking point. The Navy’s delivery planes were badly outmatched. The piston-powered C-1 Trader was a 1950s design that could seat just nine passengers, and only 17 of the larger C-2 Greyhounds had ever been built. Neither could reach land from carriers operating deep in the Pacific or Indian Ocean. Keeping the new F-14 Tomcat’s massive engines supplied was about to make the problem even worse.