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ENLARGE
The USS Langley (CV-1) was commissioned as the Navy's first aircraft carrier in 1922.
This is the first time in eight years that Naval Air Station Fallon has hosted an air show and the 111th year when naval aviation first developed in this country.
Although the United States experimented with the use of balloons sent aloft from ships during the Civil War, this country's serious interest in naval aviation did not begin until 1898 after the outbreak of the Spanish-American War.
It was in that year when Assistant Secretary of the Navy Theodore Roosevelt (who later became U.S. president six years later) recommended a Navy board be appointed to study the military applications of Professor Samuel P. Langley's flying machine, the “aerodrome.”
A man-carrying, steam driven monoplane with a wingspan of 48 feet, the contraption was launched by catapult over the Potomac River near Washington, D.C. But both launching attempts failed in 1903, the same year the Wright Brothers succeeded in making the world's first powered flight at Kitty Hawk, N.C. It was not until 1908 that the Navy showed further interest in aviation when it designated two officers to act as official observers at flying missions in the U.S. and abroad.
In 1910, the Navy named its first officer-in-charge of aviation, and during that same year civilian pilot Eugene Ely flew a Curtiss biplane off the deck of the cruiser Birmingham from a specially built wooden platform.
In January 1911 Ely landed a Curtiss plane aboard the USS Pennsylvania in San Francisco Bay. A year later Naval Aviator No. 1,Lt. T.G. Ellyson, flew a Navy A-3 from Washington Navy Yard in the first successful launching of a place from a compressed air catapult.
The first U.S. Navy combat damage to an airplane occurred in 1914 when a Navy plane received bullet holes during maneuvers over Veracruz during the Mexican crisis, and in 1916 the armored cruiser USS North Carolina received a detachment of planes that could be launched from her decks, making the ship the first U.S. Navy vessel equipped to carry and operate aircraft.
Naval aviation flourished during the First World War, when Navy planes were used primarily for convoy duty, antisubmarine warfare and to bomb enemy submarine installations. By war's end, Navy aviation's resources included 3,049 pilots, 43,452 enlisted personnel, 2,000 airplanes and 15 lighter-than-air craft.
It was in March 1922 that the Navy's first aircraft carrier, the Langley, was commissioned. A former coal-carrying ship named the Jupiter was the site of the Navy's first carrier landing while a ship was underway.
Appropriately named for Navy aviation innovator Professor Langley, the Langley (designated CV-1) served as the Navy's only aircraft carrier until 1927 when the Lexington (CV-2) and Saratoga (CV-3) were built solely to serve as carriers.
Naval aviation today can certainly be descried as overwhelmingly advanced when compared with its beginnings many years ago, but the pilots landing their modern instrument-equipped jet aircraft on the decks of a moving carrier today require the same skills, nerve and tenacity of he Navy aviation pioneers during the exciting and developmental years of the first quarter of the 20th century.
Although the United States experimented with the use of balloons sent aloft from ships during the Civil War, this country's serious interest in naval aviation did not begin until 1898 after the outbreak of the Spanish-American War.
It was in that year when Assistant Secretary of the Navy Theodore Roosevelt (who later became U.S. president six years later) recommended a Navy board be appointed to study the military applications of Professor Samuel P. Langley's flying machine, the “aerodrome.”
A man-carrying, steam driven monoplane with a wingspan of 48 feet, the contraption was launched by catapult over the Potomac River near Washington, D.C. But both launching attempts failed in 1903, the same year the Wright Brothers succeeded in making the world's first powered flight at Kitty Hawk, N.C. It was not until 1908 that the Navy showed further interest in aviation when it designated two officers to act as official observers at flying missions in the U.S. and abroad.
In 1910, the Navy named its first officer-in-charge of aviation, and during that same year civilian pilot Eugene Ely flew a Curtiss biplane off the deck of the cruiser Birmingham from a specially built wooden platform.
In January 1911 Ely landed a Curtiss plane aboard the USS Pennsylvania in San Francisco Bay. A year later Naval Aviator No. 1,Lt. T.G. Ellyson, flew a Navy A-3 from Washington Navy Yard in the first successful launching of a place from a compressed air catapult.
The first U.S. Navy combat damage to an airplane occurred in 1914 when a Navy plane received bullet holes during maneuvers over Veracruz during the Mexican crisis, and in 1916 the armored cruiser USS North Carolina received a detachment of planes that could be launched from her decks, making the ship the first U.S. Navy vessel equipped to carry and operate aircraft.
Naval aviation flourished during the First World War, when Navy planes were used primarily for convoy duty, antisubmarine warfare and to bomb enemy submarine installations. By war's end, Navy aviation's resources included 3,049 pilots, 43,452 enlisted personnel, 2,000 airplanes and 15 lighter-than-air craft.
It was in March 1922 that the Navy's first aircraft carrier, the Langley, was commissioned. A former coal-carrying ship named the Jupiter was the site of the Navy's first carrier landing while a ship was underway.
Appropriately named for Navy aviation innovator Professor Langley, the Langley (designated CV-1) served as the Navy's only aircraft carrier until 1927 when the Lexington (CV-2) and Saratoga (CV-3) were built solely to serve as carriers.
Naval aviation today can certainly be descried as overwhelmingly advanced when compared with its beginnings many years ago, but the pilots landing their modern instrument-equipped jet aircraft on the decks of a moving carrier today require the same skills, nerve and tenacity of he Navy aviation pioneers during the exciting and developmental years of the first quarter of the 20th century.
