Did You Know? The First Aircraft Carrier

On November 7, 1915, while the Great War raged in Europe, a then future U.S. President made headlines.

Franklin D. Roosevelt, serving as Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Navy, made an announcement that was recorded in the New York Times:

“An aeroplane launching device that had been under test for some time had finally been installed on the cruiser North Carolina, and that on Friday [November 5] an aeroplane was successfully launched from this device while the North Carolina was under way.”

It was the first time a plane successfully launched from the deck of a ship while at sea. The device resembled and worked as a catapult, as airplanes were still a novelty in 1915. Nevertheless, the U.S. Navy, since 1912, had envisioned using planes for wartime – for evacuation, deliverance of troops, sending supplies, and as weapons.

One hundred and five years ago, the North Carolina was the first ship to launch an airplane from its deck while it was traveling on the sea. Two flights were successfully launched, and the device was taken back to the laboratory for study and improvement.

The Times explained that the device “is in the form of a car propelled on a track. When the car stops the aeroplane is released and proceeds under its own power in flight.” The top speed upon takeoff in those days was fifty miles per hour.

The breakthrough, though achieving the front page, was a small item near the bottom, while news of a terrible conflagration at a New York factory, a sore battle in Galicia, and the release of Lord Kitchener, a British statesman and military leader, from his government’s Cabinet made greater headlines.

While aeronautics today have greatly surpassed their predecessors, it is nevertheless interesting to learn that over a century ago, innovators conceived of amazing ideas and inventions that are still useful today.

From The New York Times, Sunday, November 7, 1915.