Photo #: NH 90066
USS Pennsylvania (Armored Cruiser # 4)
At the Mare Island Navy Yard, California, in January 1911, after
she had been fitted with a temporary wooden deck in preparation
for Eugene Ely's airplane landing attempt. Ely landed his Curtiss
pusher biplane on board the ship on 18 January, the first airplane
landing on a warship.
The landing deck, 120 feet long and 30 feet wide, was inclined
slightly to help slow the plane as it landed, and had a thirty-degree
ramp at its after end.
U.S. Naval Historical Center Photograph.
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