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Historical Highway MarkersBirthplace of Naval AviationKV-3
On 14 Nov. 1910, off Old Point Comfort across the harbor from here, the U.S. Navy demonstrated that airplanes could be launched from ships. Flying a Curtiss biplane, Eugene Ely took off from a wooden ramp constructed atop the deck of the cruiser USS Birmingham. Aided by the five-degree slope of the ramp, a close-to-40-foot drop to the water, and an airplane engine that was powerful for the time, Ely gained enough speed to get the craft airborne and keep it aloft for the two-and-a-half-mile flight to Willoughby Spit. Ely's historic flight led to the founding of naval aviation in 1911.
Department of Historic Resources, 2000 See a problem? Report it to HighwayMarkers@dhr.virginia.gov. |
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References/Bibliographic Citation: Paul E. Coletta, Patrick N. L. Bellinger and U.S. Naval Aviation (Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 1987), 42-43; Martin Caiden in Co-operation with the U.S. Navy, Golden Wings: A Pictorial History of the United States Navy & Marine Crops in the Air (1960; New York: Arno Press, 1974); Roy A. Grossnick, United States Naval Aviation, 1910-1995 (Washington, D.C.: Department of the Navy, 1997), 2-5; Archibald D. Turnbull and Clifford L. Lord, History of the United States Naval Aviation (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1949), 10-15. |