It's a little known fact that the first aircraft carrier landing took place in San Francisco on January 18, 1911, on a ship, the USS Pennsylvania (ACR-4) converted for the purpose at Mare Island. Ely had done the first carrier takeoff from the deck of USS Birmingham on 14 November 1910. The following photographs, and the quoted text, are from the Naval Online Archives.
There are lots more photographs than I feel up to copying here, and a lot more text to go with them.
Eugene Ely at the controls of his Curtiss Pusher Biplane.
Note the inner tubes wrapped around his torso for Justin Case.
Soon after Eugene B. Ely's historic airplane flight from USS Birmingham Captain Washington I. Chambers, the Navy's aviation officer, proposed that Ely try landing his plane on board ship. The aviator, always searching for new ways to generate publicity for his aerial exhibitions, enthusiastically accepted the proposition, offering to make the attempt in January 1911 at San Francisco, California., where he would be participating in an air meet.
The honor of hosting the landing was assigned to the Pacific Fleet's armored cruiser Pennsylvania, and the Mare Island Navy Yard constructed a temporary wooden platform over her after deck and gun turret. Ely and others devised a method of stopping the plane within the platform's 120 by 30 foot dimensions: a series of ropes, with sandbags at each end, would be stretched across the temporary deck and held above it by boards laid along its length. Hooks were attached to the airplane's landing gear to catch the ropes, and the weight of the sandbags would bring the machine to a rapid halt. In case of an overrun, or a swerve off the platform's edge, Pennsylvania's crew rigged canvas awnings in front and to the sides to catch plane and pilot. This arrangement was a clever one, worked well, and in general pointed the way to the arresting gear and safety barrier system that is employed on the Navy's aircraft carriers to this day. -- Naval Archives Online -- The First Carrier Landing Pages
The Pennsylvania with deck attached, sitting at the Mare Island docks.
Just a few more feet! Note the sandbags on either side of the "runway" -- not much has changed in 100+ years.
Landed safe and sound!
Moments after landing.
There he goes! Back to Tanforan race track where the day's excitement started.
If time and money permit, I'd like to build scale models of both ships, for radio control. At the rate I've been building lately, don't expect anything before their centennial anniversary; January 18, 2011... if I really buckle down, I might have plans drawn up by then.
This first serious post to the Unofficial Mare Island Museum site made today, December 4, 2009.
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