03/25/2022
25 March 1898: The Birth of Naval Aviation, Samuel Langley and Theodore Roosevelt (yes, the horse-mounted Rough Rider with big cowboy hat)…
On this day, Assistant Secretary of the Navy Theodore Roosevelt, recommends to Secretary of the Navy John D. Long that he appoint two officers of scientific attainments and practical ability who, with representatives from the War Department, would examine Professor Samuel P. Langley's flying machine and report upon its practicability and its potential for use in war.
As a result, congress authorized $50,000 to support Langley’s design. This was nearly a decade before the Wright Brothers accomplished the first manned, powered flight, but many people had been working on the challenge for years. Langley’s, and Roosevelt’s insight was the beginning of US Naval Aviation.
USS Langley:
A century ago, the U.S. Navy commissioned the USS Langley—an ungainly new ship that would forever change military aviation.
They’ve been called “Cities at Sea.” Crewed by as many as 5,000 sailors and measuring more than 1,000 feet long, an aircraft carrier is a floating air base able to project power almost anywhere in the world, carrying as many as 90 aircraft. This year, the carrier celebrates its 100th birthday, born in the form of the USS Langley, a plodding little flattop commissioned in 1922. The Langley was an experiment to see if aircraft could operate effectively off ships. Langley showed it could be done, and then trained the U.S. Navy’s first generation of carrier aviators.
The development of the modern arresting system
In April 1922 the U.S. Navy decreed for Langley, “The arresting gear will consist of two or more transverse wires stretched across the fore and aft wires . . . (leading) around sheaves placed outboard to hydraulic brakes. The plane, after engaging the transverse wire, is guided down the deck by the fore and aft wires and is brought to rest by the action of the transverse wire working with the hydraulic brake.”
