Wednesday, February 24, 2016

First takeoff and landing from a ship


Welam A Shrader; Fifty years of Flight A chronicle of the aviation industry in America 1903-1953
 Eaton Manufacturing, 1953
Somewhat surprisingly these events did not occur on the same day or even with the same ship but on November 10, 1910 aviator Eugene B. Ely ( US pilot license #17) took off from a makeshift platform built on the bow of  the USS Birmingham. The flight nearly ended in disaster as the plane dipped its wheels into the water on takeoff. The flight was short- straight to the nearest beach. Two months later he landed on a platform mounted on the USS Pennsylvania. 
On Oct 19 1911 he was killed during a flying demonstration in Macon Georgia. He was 25.

U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, Public Domain, 

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