Thanks to Moose for sending this
story! Click on the thumbnail images to make them be big, then use your
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Check out the original life
preserver the pilot is wearing; its bicycle inner tubes. They had no idea what
would happen. Check the sand bags holding in place the
landing strip.
Eugene Ely takes his Curtiss
pusher airplane off the deck of USS Birmingham on 14 November 1910. It
was the first airplane takeoff from a warship. He flew for two miles before
landing on a Willoughby Spit beach.
It was a big success so they decided to continue the experiment. But this time,
a plane had to land on a ship.
On 18 January 1911, Eugene Ely
lands with the same plane on USS Pennsylvania, making this first landing on a
warship in history and a historical event.
Notice his "life vest." (Bicycle inner tubes!)
On October 19, 1911, while
flying at an exhibition in Macon, Georgia, his plane was late pulling out of a
dive and crashed.[2] Ely jumped clear of the wrecked aircraft, but his neck
was broken, and he died a few minutes later.
In 1933, he was
awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross posthumously by President
Franklin D. Roosevelt, in recognition of his contribution to naval
aviation. An exhibit of retired naval aircraft at Naval Air Station
Norfolk in Virginia bears Ely's name, and a granite historical
marker in Newport News, Virginia, overlooks the waters where Ely
made his historic flight in 1910 and recalls his contribution to
military aviation, naval in particular. (Ely was in the Army
National Guard.)
