Today in Aviation History: Eugene Ely and the First Shipboard Aircraft Landing

American aviator Eugene Ely became the first pilot to land an airplane on a ship with his Curtiss Model D pusher.

Adam Estes
Adam Estes
Eugene Ely lands aboard USS Pennsylvania, anchored in San Francisco Bay, January 18, 1911 (US Navy photo)
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VAN Today in Aviation History BannerOn this day in aviation history, January 18, 1911, American aviator Eugene Ely became the first pilot to land an airplane on a ship. This would mark one of the most crucial milestones in the burgeoning field of naval aviation, at a time when the airplane itself was less than ten years old and considered by many contemporaries to be nothing more than an expensive novelty.

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Photographic portrait of Eugene Burton Ely taken by J. Ellsworth Gross, Chicago, Illinois, 1910 (US Navy photo)

The man behind this achievement was born Eugene Burton Ely, on October 21, 1886, in Williamsburg, Iowa. Being raised in Davenport on the banks of the Mississippi River, Ely developed a passion for racing automobiles, and he became auto salesman as well as a racer, moving to San Francisco, California to continue this work. In 1907, he married Mable Hall, and by 1910, the couple was living in Portland, Oregon, where Ely was in the employ of a German-born businessman named Ernest Heinrich Wemme. Ely’s life would change forever when Wemme purchased a biplane designed and built by Glenn Curtiss. Ely volunteered to fly the new contraption but ended up crashing the pusher instead. Upon buying the wreckage from Wemme, Ely taught himself to fly, and took up exhibition work around the country, leading to Ely meeting and working with Glenn Curtiss himself, demonstrating Curtiss biplanes across both the US and Canada as part of the Curtiss Exhibition Team. On October 5, 1910, Eugene Ely was officially licensed by the Aero Club of America, receiving license number 17.

No sooner had he become one of the first licensed pilots in America that Eugene Ely distinguished himself further by attracting the interest of the US Navy. The then Secretary of the Navy, George von Lengerke Meyer, had appointed Captain Washington Irving Chambers to invest the potential for aviation in the US Navy. Captain Chambers met with Curtiss and Ely, leading to Ely becoming the first to fly an airplane from the deck of a ship, the light cruiser USS Birmingham (CS-2), anchored off Hampton Roads, Virginia on November 14, 1910, and landing at the Norfolk Naval Yard. But just two months later, Ely, would accomplish an equally momentous flight on the other side of the continent.

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Eugene Ely flies his Curtiss Pusher biplane from USS Birmingham (CS-2), in Hampton Roads, Virginia, during the afternoon of November 14, 1910, with the destroyer USS Roe (DD-24) in the background. (US Navy)

January 18, 1911: Eugene Ely has returned to San Francisco, where he was at the controls of a Curtiss Model D pusher to become the first aviator to land an airplane on a ship. At approximately 10:45 a.m., he took off from Selfridge Field (named for Thomas Selfridge, the first military aviator to be killed in a flying accident), adjacent to the Tanforan Racetrack in San Bruno, California. At anchor in San Francisco Bay rests the armored cruiser USS Pennsylvania (ACR-4), with a temporary wooden deck built over its stern, similar to the wooden deck built on USS Birmingham‘s bow for Ely’s takeoff in November 1910. What is different upon this deck, however, is that twenty-two ropes were stretched across the deck at 3-foot intervals, each with a 50-pound sandbag at each end. Ely’s plane had hooks mounted by fellow aviator Hugh Robinson in order to snag the ropes to prevent the biplane from running into the Pennsylvania‘s superstructure looming above the deck, while guideways were laid out across the deck, and there were 2-foot-high barriers on each edge of the flight deck. In case he went overboard into the water, Ely wore two bicycle innertubes as makeshift life preservers.

Around ten minutes after takeoff, Ely was over the anchored ship. He lined up his approach and when he was about 75 feet (23 meters) astern of the Pennsylvania, he cut his engine and began gliding towards the deck at a speed of around 40 miles per hour (64 kilometers per hour). Ely’s hooks snagged the ropes and at 11:01am, Eugene Ely had become the first pilot to land an airplane aboard a ship.

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Deckhands and observers surge forward to congratulate Eugene Ely, wearing inner tubes, after landing his Curtiss biplane aboard USS Pennsylvania (US Navy photo)

Being congratulated by the eager crew of the Pennsylvania and his wife Mabel, the couple were invited to a special luncheon with the ship’s captain, Charles Fremont Pond, who had remarked that this event was “…the most important landing of a bird since the dove flew back to the Ark.” After an hour on the ship, Ely had the plane repositioned on the deck of the Pennsylvania and took off again, returning to Selfridge Field, where thousands of spectators and reporters eagerly awaited him. Remarking to one journalist, Ely was quoted as saying “It was easy enough. I think the trick could be successfully turned nine times out of ten.”

Though Ely would attempt to enter the US Navy as an aviator, there were not any positions open for aviators at that time, but Captain Chambers said that if such positions opened up, that he would have Ely at the forefront of his mind. In the meantime, Eugene Ely continued his flying career as part of the Curtiss Exhibition Team, and even helped train members of the California National Guard in flying a Curtiss biplane.

But on October 19, 1911, just two days shy of his 25th birthday and less than a year after his two historic contributions to naval aviation, Eugene Ely was putting on a demonstration at the Georgia State Fairgrounds in Macon, Georgia, when he put his plane into a dive, and it failed to recover from the said dive. Ely jumped clear of the aircraft but broke his neck as a result of the fall and died on the scene a few minutes later. Despite his death, many spectators rushed to grab souvenirs from the wreckage of his airplane, and even Ely’s cap, tie, and gloves went missing from his body. Soon after the crash, he was laid to rest in his birthplace of Williamsburg, Iowa.

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Wreckage of Eugene Ely’s airplane at the Georgia State Fair Grounds, Macon, Georgia, October 19, 1911. (California Center for Military History)

Despite his tragic death, Eugene Ely had in his short life proved the potential of what would become carrier aviation, which through trial and error, would see the aircraft carrier replace the battleship as the primary means of naval combat. If Eugene Ely were to be invited onto a modern aircraft carrier, he would no doubt be amazed at the capabilities of the supersonic jet aircraft roaring from its decks and the efficiency of the highly trained deckhands, but yet he would also recognize the same takeoff and landing approaches that he used in 1910 and 1911, and see that while cables, rather than weighted ropes, are used to slow down landing aircraft, F/A-18E/F Super Hornets and F-35C Lightning IIs still need hooks to slow their landing rolls on carrier decks.

Today in Aviation History is a series highlighting the achievements, innovations, and milestones that have shaped the skies. All the previous anniversaries are available HERE

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Raised in Fullerton, California, Adam has earned a Bachelor's degree in History and is now pursuing a Master's in the same field. Fascinated by aviation history from a young age, he has visited numerous air museums across the United States, including the National Air and Space Museum and the San Diego Air and Space Museum. He volunteers at the Planes of Fame Air Museum in Chino as a docent and researcher, gaining hands-on experience with aircraft maintenance. Known for his encyclopedic knowledge of aviation history, he is particularly interested in the stories of individual aircraft and their postwar journeys. Active in online aviation communities, he shares his work widely and seeks further opportunities in the field.
2 Comments
    • When the USS Birmingham was originally commissioned in 1908, it was classified as a scout cruiser (CS), but by 1920, the US Navy redesignated it as a light cruiser (CL). The designator CA was later used for heavy cruisers, and the designation CA-2 was applied to the USS Rochester (formerly USS New York (ACR-2), later renamed USS Saratoga, then USS Rochester).

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