![]() The Navy commissioned the USS Langley (CV 1), on March 20, 1922. The idea seemed visionary, even then, but not to an infantry officer, who thought a ship carrying planes instead of coal was “a ridiculous idea.” ![]() On July 11, 1919, Congress appropriated funds to convert the collier Jupiter to carry planes. Navy fliers had an important role in the Great War, 1917-18, but the aircraft carrier was a postwar development. initially lagged in pursuing the concept. Other nations were beginning to explore the idea of a floating airfield at sea – an aircraft carrier – but the U.S. In the early days of naval aviation, pilots flew kite balloons and flying boats. Towers, schooled by Glenn Curtiss, soon joined him. John Rodgers, who was trained by Wilbur and Orville Wright, and Lt. “Spuds” Ellyson became the first naval aviator in 1911, Lt. 18, 1911, the intrepid Ely made the world’s first shipboard landing on the armored cruiser USS Pennsylvania (ACR 4).Īfter 26-year-old Lt. 14,1910 when civilian pilot Eugene Ely flew a Curtiss biplane from a specially built platform aboard the cruiser USS Birmingham (CL 2). But its carrier aviation really began on Nov. Naval aviation cites its official birthday as May 8, 1911, when sailors acquired their first aircraft. But the advance of carrier aviation was not always rapid or dramatic. By the end of the decade, nuclear power, too, was establishing itself. The 1950s gave us the mirror landing system, the angled flight deck, and the supercarrier. Bush carrier strike group.ĭuring the Korean War, jet aircraft proved themselves on carrier decks, the speed and duration of carrier warplanes changed drastically, and innovations to ship design came one after another. We owe today’s high-tech carrier largely to the unique era of the 1950s, that era of rapid change prompted by Korea and the Cold War that produced a completely different Navy carrier force and set the stage for the 21st century’s George H.W. From the bridge to primary flight control (“Pri-fly”), from the three steel arresting cables stretched across the deck to the twin reactors of the nuclear power plant, the aircraft carrier of today is a man-made marvel. Bush (CVN 77), bristles with technological solutions to ancient problems. Today’s aircraft carrier surely is the closet thing to wizardry that modern man can create.Ī ship like one of the Navy’s newest carriers, USS George H.W. Advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic, wrote futurist Arthur C.
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