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DEPARTMENT OF THE NAVY -- NAVAL HISTORICAL CENTER
805 KIDDER BREESE SE -- WASHINGTON NAVY YARD
WASHINGTON DC 20374-5060

Online Library of Selected Images -- Picture Data

Photo #: NH 70595

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.
The original glass plate negative for this image was cracked, producing the undulating horizontal line across the middle.

Courtesy of the Mare Island Naval Shipyard, 1970.

U.S. Naval Historical Center Photograph.

Online Image: 95KB; 740 x 595 pixels

 

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20 December 2002