Early Naval Aviation
18 JANUARY 1911
EARLY NAVAL AVIATION
As early as 1898 such forward thinkers as Assistant Secretary of the Navy Theodore Roosevelt urged that the “flying machines” then under development be investigated. Indeed, in less than a decade civilian aircraft designers Glenn Curtiss and the Wright brothers were competing to sell aviation technology to the military. On 29 September 1910, Secretary of the Navy George von Lengerke Myer appointed CAPT Washington Irving Chambers to coordinate naval policy on aviation. Chambers, at the urging of Glenn Curtiss, ordered the construction of a wooden platform on the bow of the light cruiser BIRMINGHAM (CL-2). On November 14th, Eugene B. Ely, a civilian test pilot for Curtiss’ corporation, made the first successful launch from a ship while BIRMINGHAM lay at anchor in Hampton Roads. His 50-hp. Curtiss pusher plane dipped off the ramp and splashed the water’s surface but managed to struggle into the air for a landing on Willoughby Spit. A keen businessman, Curtiss next offered to train several Navy officers as pilots at his school at North Island, San Diego. LT Theodore Gordon Ellyson was the first to be ordered to such training at the Glenn Curtiss Aviation Center in 23 December 1910.
But to sell the Navy completely, Curtiss still had to demonstrate that aircraft could land on ships. Toward that end he had a wooden deck built over the after gun turret on the cruiser PENNSYLVANIA (ACR-4). From the fantail it stretched 120 feet forward, ending with a solid vertical wall. Twenty ropes were spread athwart the ramp, weighted at each end with a fifty-pound sandbag. A hook mounted on the tail of the Curtiss pusher was to snag the lines sequentially. Mr. Ely again piloted this historic landing. At 1100 this day, while PENNSYLVANIA rested at anchor in San Francisco Bay, Ely brought his plane around for an approach. In front of an army of news reporters and cameras the Curtiss pusher jerked to a picture-perfect landing. Ely greeted Pennsylvania’s skipper, CAPT Charles F. Pond, then an hour later took off again for Selfridge Field.
Events moved quickly from this point. On April 12th LT Ellyson completed his flight training, becoming Naval Aviator #1. The first naval air station was designated in September, the Engineering Experiment Station at Annapolis, across the Severn River from the Academy. And on 22 May the following year, USMC 2nd LT Alfred A. Cunningham became the first Marine Corps aviator.
Today, hanging in the lobby of the San Diego Aerospace Museum in Balboa Park, is a mock-up of LT Ellyson flying a Curtiss biplane during his training. It remembers the important contribution San Diego made to the development of Naval Aviation.
Watch for more “Today in Naval History” 25 JAN 23
CAPT James Bloom, Ret.
Department of the Navy, Deputy Chief of Naval Operations (Air Warfare). United States Naval Aviation 1910-1980. Washington, DC: GPO, 1981, pp. 1-6.
Downey, George. “Eugene Ely: He Gave the Navy Wings.” Sea Classics, Vol 44 (4), April 2011, pp. 42-46, 64.
Love, Robert W. History of the US Navy, Vol 1 1775-1941. Harrisburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 1992, pp. 451-52.
Site visit. San Diego Aerospace Museum, Balboa Park, San Diego, California, 12 June 1998.
Sweetman, Jack. American Naval History: An Illustrated Chronology of the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps, 1775-Present, 3rd ed. Annapolis, MD: USNI Press, 2002, p. 112.
