In 1911, the first landing of an aircraft on a ship took place when pilot Lt. Eugene B. Ely brought his 50-hp Curtiss pusher biplane in for a safe landing on a 119-ft wooden platform attached the deck of the U.S.S. Pennsylvania in San Francisco Harbor.
The plane's landing gear was provided with hooks adapted to catch ropes secured by sandbags stretched across the landing platform to stop the plane upon landing. Improved versions of this ingenious arrangement were to become standard equipment on aircraft carriers.
After spending an hour aboard the ship, he took off and flew back to his hangar near San Francisco. The previous November he first made a take off from a ship. These flights demonstrated the adaptability of aircraft to ship-board operations.
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