The North Island era: Birth of naval aviation

First landing on a ship

Curtiss pilot Eugene Ely makes the first landing on a ship. This official U.S. Navy photo is from the Navy's web site.

On January 18, 1911, in San Francisco bay, Ely landed on a wooden deck built over the stern of the USS Pennsylvania,. His arresting gear, to shorten the landing, consisted of sand filled sea bags attached to ropes stretched across this deck with the ropes raised from the deck by longitudinal timbers. Hooks to catch the ropes were attached to the plane. This arrangement is surprisingly close to later aircraft carrier arresting gear.

There is a story that Ely had been a circus performer and did a "loop the loop" with a motorcycle and that he had used ropes and sandbags to slow the motorcycle at the end of the loop.

Ely circled and approached the ship. As he arrived at the end of the deck he encountered "ground effect" which caused him to rise and miss the first 11 ropes. He caught the 12th and subsequent ones. They slowed him to a stop not far from the canvas stretched behind the aft gun turret.

During a brief lunch with the ships officers, the arresting ropes and sand bags were removed and his plane was turned around. The pictures show that Ely was wearing motorcycle inner tubes around his waist and across his chest as a makeshift life preserver. His successfully took off and returned to land in the Presidio area of San Francisco.

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