Plane lands on shipIn 1911, the first landing of an aircraft on a ship took place as pilot Lt. Eugene B. Ely brought his 50-hp Curtiss pusher biplane in for a safe landing on a 119-ft wooden platform attached the deck of the U.S.S. Pennsylvania in San Francisco Harbor. To arrest his plane upon landing, its landing gear was provided with hooks adapted to catch ropes secured by sandbags stretched across the landing platform. Improved versions of this ingenious arrangement were to become standard equipment on aircraft carriers. After spending an hour aboard the ship, he took off and flew back to his hangar near San Francisco. These flights demonstrated the adaptability of aircraft to ship-board operations. The previous year, on 14 Nov 1910 he first made a take off from a ship. |
