Eugene
Ely
Born 1886, Davenport IA. Died Oct 11, 1911.
Raised on the family farm, Eugene Ely
graduated from Iowa State University with a strong interest
in things mechanical. He learned early on to drive an
automobile and initially became a chauffeur, then one of the
first racing car drivers in America. In 1909 he moved to San
Francisco to sell cars, married Mabel Hall, and the two
bought a home in Portland, Oregon.
There he met auto dealer Harry Wemme, who had a newfound
interest in aviation, and who had just bought a Curtiss in
preparation for becoming the Northwest's first airplane
dealer. Wemme had no knowledge of flight and was reluctant
to teach himself to fly, so with no pilots available to
help, Ely offered his hand, assuming flying couldn't be all
that more difficult than racing cars. He learned otherwise
on his first try when the Curtiss became briefly airborne
before crashing. As apology for his accident, Ely bought the
remains and repaired the pusher, becoming familiar with its
workings, and finally did teach himself to fly in early
1910.
In performing exhibition flights around Portland, he
realized he could earn more money than by selling cars, so
he and his wife headed north to Canada for a flying tour,
ending up in Minneapolis, where he met Glenn Curtiss at an
aviation meet. Curtiss was impressed with Ely's abilities
and convinced him to become a member of his exhibition team
scheduled for a tour of the Great Lakes and Eastern cities.
In Chicago in early October, Ely received his Aero Club of
America pilot's license, number 17, to become one of the
aeronautical elite.
Attracted by an $25,000 prize offered jointly by the New
York Timesand Chicago Post for the first person
to fly between the two cities, Ely tried, but gave up after
making barely 30 miles in two days — his old pusher just
wasn't rugged enough for cross-county flying. However, he
did meet Capt Washington Chambers, the USN's first
designated Director of Aviation, in Belmont Park, who spoke
of his interest in having aerial service to and from ships
at sea. He said he did not have enough in his budget to pay
Ely to try, but could provide a ship. When Ely agreed,
Chambers arranged for the cruiser USS Birmingham
to have a wooden platform built on its deck at
the Norfolk Navy Yard.
However, it became a race against the clock when New York
newspaper articles told of the Hamburg-American Line
planning the same attempt, to be flown by J A D McCurdy, on
November 5, 1910, as their liner, Kaiserine Auguste
Victoria, left New York Harbour. Chambers spurred his
yard workers to a greater effort, and Ely headed for Norfolk
by train with the celebrated Curtiss Hudson Flyer, but their
clock was running out. Although McCurdy and his airplane
were aboard Victoria when it left port, weather
turned foul and he was unable to fly. His plane was
offloaded so that the liner could remain on its schedule,
but Hamburg-American workers were already outfitting another
ship, Amerika, scheduled to sail November 12, while
Navy Yarders were still struggling with technical problems.
Fortune smiled again for Ely as misfortune beset McCurdy.
His fragile plane was damaged in lading onto Amerika,
and the ship sailed off, leaving a frustrated
McCurdy and his broken machine on the dock. Finally,
Birmingham's80' by 24' wooden deck was finished and the
Hudson Flyer brought aboard by crane. The gloomy Monday
morning of November 14 saw an entourage of Navy officials
and Norfolk onlookers awaiting the big show, but weather
appeared to be deteriorating. With about an hour of light
left, at 3:00 pm, clouds lifted enough to see the target,
Willoughby Spit, so Ely cranked up his motor. At 3:17, a
restraining line was cut, and the plane trundled down the
gently sloping deck. Barely gaining necessary speed, Ely
broke free from the deck, briefly sank low enough to shatter
his propeller tips on the waves, then flew to the spit with
the entire plane vibrating badly and made a credible landing
on the sandy beach. The observers were elated, and Commodore
John Ryan even gave Ely $500 to pay for his propeller! The
feat not only demonstrated the practicality of aviation in
Navy service, but it put Ely on the front pages.
He continued with the Curtiss exhibition team through the
South and Midwest, arriving at Curtiss' San Diego camp in
December for a Christmas break. Capt Chambers had arranged
for a similar, larger deck to be built on the cruiser USS
Pennsylvania at Mare Island
Navy Yard near San Francisco. Across this 119' by 31' deck
were strung 22 manila lines three feet apart with 50-lb
sandbags tied to each ends. These were propped up to about
one foot as a prehistoric arresting gear. At San Diego, Ely
and Curtiss rigged three pairs of steel hooks on an extended
skid to snag those lines.
Eugene B. Ely's Curtiss pusher biplane nears the landing
platform on USS Pennsylvania (Armoured Cruiser # 4),
during the morning of 18 January 1911. The ship was then
anchored in San Francisco Bay, California.
By train, Ely and his airplane moved to Tanforan Racetrack
below San Francisco in early January 1911, and
Pennsylvania anchored in place
on the Bay at dawn on January 18. With two other cruisers
floating nearby as viewing stands for onlookers, Ely left
Tanforan that morning and flew the 10 miles to his "aircraft
carrier," making a straight-in approach from 1,500' with a
tailwind of almost 15 knots. At about 40 mph, he missed the
first 11 arresting lines, but caught the rest to make the
first landing on a ship at 11:01 am. Then, turning his plane
around while a deck crew cleared away the lines, he took off
at 11:58 and flew back to Tanforan.
He continued his tour of the nation during 1911, then with
star billing. At the Georgia State Fairgrounds in Macon on
October 11, Ely was flying his routine when something went
wrong. He was seen fighting to maintain control while diving
from several hundred feet, but the plane crashed near the
grandstand. At 25, in a notable flying career lasting only
18 months, Ely died of a broken neck when he was thrown from
his seat. More tragically, the crowd was unruly and rushed
to the wreckage to strip souvenirs from the airplane and
pieces of clothing from his body. (— K O Eckland) |