Some Navy Aviation Events Related to Hampton Roads, VA

摘要

There is some evidence that the Navy's first interest in aviation may have occurred as far back as 1898, five years before the Wright Brothers historic flight and at a time when Samuel P. Langley was having some success with flying models. On March 25, 1898 the Assistant Secretary of the Navy .Theodore Roosevelt, impressed by the success of Langley with his flying models, reported to the Secretary of the Navy of the potential of aviation for use in war and recommended that two officers be appointed to access the "scientific attainments and practical ability" of the role of aircraft in war. Subsequent the Navy appointed members to a joint board with the Army to consider the role of aircraft in warfare. The board met in April 1898 and their report expressed a view generally in favor of the value of aviation for military purposes. Despit the favorable report, the Navy took no further part in the development of aviation at that time. In August 1909, Comm. Frederick L. Chapin, the United States Naval Attache'at Paris attended the first international Rheims Air Meet, and reported that, in his opinion, "the airplane would have a present usefulness in naval warfare and that the limits of the field will be extended in the near future."As interest was growing, the Navy acknowledged a role for aviation when the Secretary of the Navy, George von L. Meyer, on September 26, 1910, designated Capt. Washington I. Chambers as the officer to whom all correspondence on aviation should be referred. It was not long before Glenn Curtiss, a U.S. pioneer in aviation began meeting with Chambers in an effort to convince the Navy of the practicability of his aircraft for Naval use.