Aircraft Carrier USS Langley (CV-1) Action in 1923-24

Picture a U.S. Navy with only one aircraft carrier, a converted collier renamed USS Langley. The time is the early 1920s, and methodology for aircraft carrier operations is being hammered out by the pioneering aviators and deck handlers seen in these films. For analyzing the performance of aircraft and pilots, the Navy sometimes used high-speed cameras to give slow-motion film results. Watch for things like the sled-mounted Douglas DT seaplane torpedo bombers catapulted from Langley's deck. A mechanical block is hit by the sled to release the airplane which sails forward at the end of the sled's travel on the catapult. The biplane with an underslung lower wing is the TS-1, designed by the Naval Aircraft factory and also built by Curtiss. It was the Navy's first new fighter after World War I. See a row of vertical spines beneath the landing gear spreader bar on the TS-1? Those were innovated to provide tracking stability with longitudinal deck cables intended to keep the aircraft moving parallel along the ship's deck. Biplanes with double-bay wings include the Vought VE-7 with a liquid-cooled Wright-Hispano engine. Interesting that the aircraft have tailskids instead of tailwheels, in an era when land-based airfields were typically grass strips. Occasionally an old-style biplane design with a narrow liquid-cooled engine is filmed; these are Aeromarine Model 39s. One of these was the first aircraft to land aboard Langley in October 1922. Some of the Aeromarines have a ditching plane mounted to the landing gear, designed to prevent abrupt noseovers in the event of a water landing. Lieutenant Commander V.C. Griffin is credited with making the first takeoff from Langley in a Vought VE-7 on October 11, 1922. He served throughout World War II, retiring from the Navy in 1947. Lieutenant Frederick Pennoyer is credited with helping develop and improve the system of landing wires to engage a tailhook. Lieutenant W.M. Dillon went on to an illustrious World War II carrier aviation career, retiring from the Navy in 1946 as a rear admiral. Lieutenant S.H. Wooster died on April 26, 1927 along with Lieutenant Commander N.G. Davis when their civilian Keystone Pathfinder crashed during test flying for a transatlantic flight attempt. Commander Kenneth Whiting is often credited as the father of carrier aviation. He was an enthusiastic advocate and practitioner of aircraft carrier rationale. Thank you for watching the Airailimages Channel on YouTube, and especially thank you for subscribing. We appreciate it.