The Army and Navy Spread Their Wings
Although successful, Eugene Ely’s flight from the deck of the Birmingham had little effect on the Navy’s conservative attitude toward aviation. At times, as the skeptical comments of naval officers continued, it appeared that Captain Chambers was being dared to prove the value of the airplane to the Navy. It was fortunate for the United States that the Captain was an officer willing to accept the challenge.
Captain Chambers asked for funds to purchase several of the existing types of airplanes for the purpose of training navy personnel in the art of flying. As no money was available, the Captain had to continue his experiments in co-operation with aircraft manufacturers and civilian fliers. Spurred by the successful flight of Ely, Glenn Curtiss willingly aided Captain Chambers. Curtiss was so enthusiastic about the future of naval aviation that he approached the Navy Department with the offer to train, without cost to the service, an officer to fly. After considerable discussion in the Department, Lieutenant Theodore G. Ellyson, U. S. Navy, was ordered to join Curtiss.
Curtiss moved his flying activities to San Diego, California, in 1910, and it was there that Lieutenant Ellyson became the first American naval officer to learn to fly. This was eight years after the first flights of the Wright Brothers.
Curtiss had collected a group of skilled pilots to fly under his direction. In this group were McCurdy, Willard, Witmer, Ely, and the famous Lincoln Beachey. With this assemblage Curtiss was able to make great strides in the progress of flying and aircraft development. Curtiss and Captain Chambers, working closely together, laid their plans for proving to the Navy Department the capabilities of the airplane. Both men were convinced thoroughly that it was possible to take off in an airplane from the deck of a ship, fly to a designated spot, fly back, and land on the deck. There was a great amount of ridicule at this idea, but Curtiss and Chambers went ahead with their plans and erected a 120-foot platform on the deck of the cruiser U. S. S. Pennsylvania. On January 18, 1911, a Curtiss landplane, with Eugene Ely at the controls, soared from the deck, circled out over the water, and approached the cruiser. Twenty-two pairs of fifty-pound sandbags were attached to lines drawn taut across the deck platform. The plane was equipped with steel hooks for use in catching the deck lines. Ely flew in at the speed of thirty-nine miles an hour. Sailors aboard the Pennsylvania ducked for cover, expecting the plane to overshoot the platform. Just as he reached the end of the platform, Ely pulled up the nose of his ship, and cut off the engine. The plane settled to the deck. Then and there were the beginnings of what eventually was to become the most effective weapon of the United States Navy—the aircraft carrier.
During the winter of 1911, Curtiss designed the first American seaplane, or hydroplane as it was then called. On January 26th, he made a flight of thirty-one seconds and landed smoothly on the water. That afternoon he made a number of flights, to the delight of the crowds that lined the Coronado shores of the Spanish Bight off San Diego. Little did the onlookers dream that years later flying boats of the United States Navy would fly over the Seven Seas, even remaining aloft for a day at a time.
In addition to Lieutenant Ellyson, Captain Chambers succeeded in having Lieutenants John H. Towers and John Rogers ordered to report for flight instruction. These three men became Navy Pilots One, Two and Three. Pilot Number 3 was Lieutenant (now Vice Admiral) John H. Towers, who ever since has made his name synonymous with the progress of naval aviation. In July, 1911, the United States Navy took delivery of its first airplanes, one Wright and two Curtiss landplanes. Later that year the Navy established its first aviation camp on the banks of Severn River just across from the Naval Academy at Annapolis, Maryland.
During this time the United States Army was making some progress with military aviation. In March, 1911, Congress was prevailed upon to appropriate $125,000 for aëronautics. The Army bought three more airplanes, the first since the purchase of one Wright airplane in 1909. In July, 1911, the first military aviation school was established at College Park, Maryland. The Army’s first instructor was Army Pilot Number 1, Lieutenant Frank Lahm. The first students were Lieutenants Benjamin Foulois, Thomas DeW. Milling, and the man who was destined, thirty-two years later, to lead the world’s greatest air force, Henry H. (“Hap”) Arnold, Commanding General, United States Army Air Forces during World War II.
Flying in two Wright and one Curtiss biplanes, the fledgling Army fliers conducted experimental work in aërial photography and radio. But these forward-looking young men, even then, saw the airplane as a weapon and began seeking ways of dealing out destruction to an enemy. They fired machine guns at ground targets, tested a bomb sight, and dropped small bombs from their planes.
In 1905 a newspaper in Salina, Kansas, had carried a story of two brothers named Wright. This story robbed the budding “auto” industry of a promising young mechanic, Glenn L. Martin by name.
As a boy, Glenn Martin built and flew the very best kites in Salina. As he grew older he was thrilled by the appearance of the horseless carriage. As soon as he was old enough he took a job in Dave Methven’s garage, convinced that there was a future in the noisy “gas-buggies.”
In the surge of interest in automobiles, Glenn Martin had all but forgotten the stories of Chanute and Lilienthal and the old urge of the winds in his kites. In 1905, after reading the newspaper story concerning the Wrights, he excitedly told his mother, “I am going to fly, too!” And he did.
A short time after he made that remark, Glenn’s family moved to California and he soon became a successful automobile salesman. But he did not forget his decision to fly. With his mother’s support, he began to build his plane by night, after selling cars all day. With his mother holding a lantern for him, he often worked most of the night in the abandoned church that served as his workshop. In spite of neighborly criticism, Glenn finished his plane and flew it from a Santa Ana cow pasture, on August 1, 1909.
As soon as he had successfully flown his first airplane, Martin began to plan better machines. He gave flying exhibitions all over southern California to earn the money to build more Martin planes. In January, 1912, he flew the first mail from Dominguez, California, to Compton, California. In April of that year he flew twenty-four miles in twenty-five minutes, to deliver newspapers from Fresno, California, to a neighboring town. On May 10, 1910, Martin flew thirty-three miles over the ocean from Newport Harbor, California, to Catalina Island. This first trans-Pacific flight was made in a hydroplane of Martin’s own design.