From the Archives: Arrival of the Langley, first US aircraft carrier, marked beginnin

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From the Archives: Arrival of the Langley, first US aircraft carrier, marked beginning of an era
By: Merrie Monteagudo - San Diego Union-Tribune - 11-29-19
RE: https://www.stripes.com/lifestyle/mi...n-era-1.609165

Photo link: https://www.stripes.com/polopoly_fs/..._900/image.JPG
(Date: 96 Years ago 11-30-24) a photo of the USS Langley in the 1920s. - U.S. NAVY

(Tribune News Service) — On Nov. 29, 1924, the nation's first aircraft carrier, the Langley, arrived at San Diego to join the Pacific Battle Fleet. The ship was originally built to carry coal for the World War I fighting fleets but had been converted into an experimental aircraft carrier.

The Langley was described by the Evening Tribune as "the queerest looking vessel in the United States navy, and the first vessel of its type to be constructed." The Union simply dubbed it the "Deadliest Ship Afloat."

From The San Diego Union, Sunday, November 30, 1924:

'DEADLIEST SHIP AFLOAT' ARRIVES HERE

BEARS FAST SQUADRON OF AIR RAIDERS

S.D. Fliers to Practice Sea Take-Offs From Langley, Based Here in Preparation For Pacific Maneuvers.

Heralding a new era in the development of America's aerial forces in the Pacific, the naval aircraft carrier Langley, unique, bulky, but of a type that within a comparatively few years will comprise the major units of the battle fleet, arrived from Hampton Roads at 8 o'clock yesterday morning.

Gallery link: https://www.stripes.com/polopoly_fs/..._900/image.jpg

Its potential power as a fighting craft, deadlier than any battleship ever built because of the mobility of the aircraft of which it is the mothership, was illustrated vividly when the Langley still was many miles from port.

Friday afternoon, when the aircraft carrier was 100 miles distant from Point Loma, three seaplanes were launched from the Langley. One of these ships has a cruising range of approximately 2000 miles. It could carry a ton of bombs. The other two planes are equipped for carrying 1100-pound torpedoes.

SHOWS WARTIME VALUE

Sweeping in from seaward under cover of darkness Friday evening, these planes could have destroyed many lives and property valued at millions of dollars had they been enemy instead of friendly aircraft.

Shortly after breakfast yesterday morning, with the Langley still hull down on the horizon, 10 battle planes soared off from her spacious deck in rapid succession, whirled with high speed into formation and winged their way over the harbor and city. Under their protection, in war time, could have come squadrons of bombing planes launched from the Langley.

If any one doubts the terrific punishing power of the Langley with her fleet of aircraft one has but to converse a few moments with her officers. These officers also will tell one that the Langley is the only aircraft carrier in the world that never has had a fatal aircraft accident. So spacious is her flying deck, extending from bow to stern and 56 feet above the waterline, so efficient the arresting devices for alighting airplanes, that not a single airman has been injured seriously.

The Japanese navy has aircraft carriers, but no Japanese naval aviator to date ever has landed successfully on their decks. Foreign airmen who are instructing the Japanese have done so.

Historical photos and articles from The San Diego Union-Tribune archive compiled by merrie.monteagudo@sduniontribune.com. For content from 1871 forward visit the Union-Tribune archives at NewsLibrary.com/sites/sdub.

©2019 The San Diego Union-Tribune

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Personal note: Today she looks archaic but then she was state of the art for its time.

More history: Aircraft carriers are warships that evolved from balloon-carrying wooden vessels into nuclear-powered vessels carrying scores of fixed- and rotary-wing aircraft. Since their introduction they have allowed naval forces to project air power great distances without having to depend on local bases for staging aircraft operations.

Balloon carriers were the first ships to deploy manned aircraft, used during the 19th and early 20th century, mainly for observation purposes. The advent of fixed-wing aircraft in 1903 was followed in 1910 by the first flight from the deck of a US Navy cruiser. Seaplanes and seaplane tender support ships, such as HMS Engadine, followed. The development of flat top vessels produced the first large fleet ships. This evolution was well underway by the early to mid-1920s, resulting in the commissioning of ships such as Hōshō (1922), HMS Hermes (1924),[1] Béarn (1927), and the Lexington-class aircraft carriers (1927).

Most early aircraft carriers were conversions of ships that were laid down (or had even served) as different ship types: cargo ships, cruisers, battlecruisers, or battleships. During the 1920s, several navies started ordering and building aircraft carriers that were specifically designed as such. This allowed the design to be specialized to their future role, and resulted in superior ships. During the Second World War, these ships would become the backbone of the carrier forces of the US, British, and Japanese navies, known as fleet carriers.

World War II saw the first large-scale use of aircraft carriers and induced further refinement of their launch and recovery cycle leading to several design variants. The USA built small escort carriers, such as USS Bogue, as a stop-gap measure to provide air support for convoys and amphibious invasions. Subsequent light aircraft carriers, such as USS Independence, represented a larger, more "militarized" version of the escort carrier concept. Although the light carriers usually carried the same size air groups as escort carriers, they had the advantage of higher speed as they had been converted from cruisers under construction.

Yet further back: (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Histor...rcraft_carrier)

The earliest recorded instance of using a ship for airborne operations occurred in 1806, when Lord Cochrane of the Royal Navy launched kites from the 32-gun frigate HMS Pallas in order to drop propaganda leaflets.[2] The proclamations against Napoleon Bonaparte, written in French, were attached to kites, and the kite strings were set alight; when the strings had burned through, the leaflets landed on French soil.[3]

Balloon carriers
Just over 40 years later on 12 July 1849,[4] the Austrian Navy ship SMS Vulcano was used for launching incendiary balloons. A number of small Montgolfiere hot air ballons were launched with the intention of dropping bombs on Venice. Although the attempt largely failed due to contrary winds which drove the balloons back over the ship, one bomb did land on the city.[5]

Later, during the American Civil War, about the time of the Peninsula Campaign, gas-filled balloons were used to perform reconnaissance on Confederate positions. The battles soon turned inland into the heavily forested areas of the Peninsula, however, where balloons could not travel. A coal barge, USS George Washington Parke Custis, was cleared of all deck rigging to accommodate the gas generators and apparatus of balloons. From the barge Professor Thaddeus S. C. Lowe, Chief Aeronaut of the Union Army Balloon Corps, made his first ascents over the Potomac River and telegraphed claims of the success of the first aerial venture ever made from a water-borne vessel. Other barges were converted to assist with the other military balloons transported about the eastern waterways, but none of these Civil War craft ever took to the high seas.

Balloons launched from ships led to the development of balloon carriers, or balloon tenders, during World War I, by the navies of Great Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Russia, and Sweden. About ten such "balloon tenders" were built, their main objective being aerial observation posts. These ships were either decommissioned or converted to seaplane tenders after the war.

A number of experimental flights were made to test the concept. Eugene Ely was the first pilot to launch from a stationary ship in November 1910. He took off from a structure fixed over the forecastle of the US armored cruiser USS Birmingham at Hampton Roads, Virginia and landed nearby on Willoughby Spit after some five minutes in the air.

On 18 January 1911, he became the first pilot to land on a stationary ship. He took off from the Tanforan racetrack and landed on a similar temporary structure on the aft of USS Pennsylvania anchored at the San Francisco waterfront—the improvised braking system of sandbags and ropes led directly to the arrestor hook and wires described below. His aircraft was then turned around and he was able to take off again.

Commander Charles Rumney Samson, Royal Navy, became the first airman to take off from a moving warship, on 9 May 1912. He took off in a Short S.38 from the battleship HMS Hibernia while she steamed at 15 kn (17 mph; 28 km/h) during the Royal Fleet Review at Weymouth, England.[16]

HMS Argus: the first full-length flat deck

The first full-length flat deck, HMS Argus in 1918

The first ship to have a full-length flat deck was HMS Argus, the conversion of which was completed in September 1918. The United States Navy did not follow suit until 1920, when the conversion of USS Langley, an experimental ship which did not count against America's carrier tonnage, was completed. The first American fleet carriers would not enter service until November 1927 when USS Saratoga of the Lexington-class was commissioned. The lead ship of the class, USS Lexington, was commissioned the following month.

Hurricane bow

A "hurricane bow" is a bow sealed up to the flight deck, first seen on HMS Hermes (1924). The American Lexington-class carriers also featured this when they entered service in 1927. Combat experience proved it to be by far the most useful configuration for the bow of the ship among others that were tried, including an additional flying-off deck and an anti-aircraft battery.[citation needed] The latter was the most common American configuration during World War II, seen in the Essex-class (the "long-hull" variant),[citation needed] and it was not until after the war when a majority of American carriers incorporated the hurricane bow. The first Japanese carrier with a hurricane bow was Taihō.

The angled flight deck was first tested on HMS Triumph, by painting angled deck markings onto the centerline flight deck for touch and go landings.[25] This was also tested on USS Midway the same year.[26][27] In both tests, the arresting gear and barriers remained oriented to the original axis deck. During September through December 1952 USS Antietam had a rudimentary sponson installed for true angled deck tests, allowing for full arrested landings, which proved during trials to be superior.[26] In 1953 Antietam trained with both US and British naval units, proving the worth of the angled deck concept.[28] HMS Centaur was modified with an overhanging angled flight deck in 1954.[25] The US Navy installed the decks as part of the SCB-125 upgrade for the Essex-class and SCB-110/110A for the Midway-class. In February 1955, HMS Ark Royal became the first carrier to be constructed and launched with the deck, followed in the same year by the lead ships of the British Majestic-class (HMAS Melbourne) and the American Forrestal-class (USS Forrestal).[25]

Helicopters

USS Tripoli, a US Navy Iwo Jima-class helicopter carrier
The post-war years also saw the development of the helicopter, with a variety of useful roles and mission capability aboard aircraft carriers. Whereas fixed-wing aircraft are suited to air-to-air combat and air-to-surface attack, helicopters are used to transport equipment and personnel and can be used in an anti-submarine warfare (ASW) role, with dipping sonar, air-launched torpedoes, and depth charges; as well as for anti-surface vessel warfare, with air-launched anti-ship missiles.

In the late 1950s and early 1960s, the United Kingdom and the United States converted some older carriers into helicopter carriers or Landing Platform Helicopters (LPH); seagoing helicopter bases like HMS Bulwark. To mitigate the expensive connotations of the term "aircraft carrier", the new Invincible-class carriers were originally designated as "through deck cruisers"[citation needed] and were initially to operate as helicopter-only escort carriers. The arrival of the Sea Harrier VTOL/STOVL fast jet meant they could carry fixed-wing aircraft, despite their short flight deck.

The United States used some Essex-class carriers initially as pure anti-submarine warfare (ASW) carriers, embarking helicopters and fixed-wing ASW aircraft like the S-2 Tracker. Later, specialized LPH helicopter carriers for the transport of Marine Corps troops and their helicopter transports were developed. These evolved into the Landing Helicopter Assault (LHA) and later into the Landing Helicopter Dock (LHD) classes of amphibious assault ships, which normally also embark a few Harrier aircraft.

Key Technologies (chart): (onsite with 1st seen elements of the carrier design & mods).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Histor...rcraft_carrier

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