But Mabel Ely claimed that they were all wrong. Gene had used this system to stop his racing cars long before he ever saw an aeroplane.
These claims could all have substance. Quite probably a lot of people took part in discussions regarding arresting gear while Ely was trying out ideas on the aviation field at Tanforan. He tied a weight to each end of a rope, stretched it across two-by-fours and taxied over it. A blacksmith’s hook usually skipped over the rope and, if it caught, the plane swerved alarmingly. By trial and error he found that, if he caught the rope dead center, carefully matched weights would slow him in a straight line.
After looking at the Pennsylvania’s mast, Ely knew he had to be right the first time. On the ship he could not go round again if the hook failed to catch. That worried him until he got three pairs of spring-loaded, racing-car hooks from a San Francisco friend and lined them up in tandem on a slat under his landing gear. With that arrangement he picked up the line on every run.
Glenn Curtiss did not like the plan. Ely was confident. For months he had been making short takeoffs and precision landings. He was certain of his skill. He had a new and heavier plane which let him land slower than with the old one. When he put aluminum floats under the wings he felt ready for anything, even if the engine should quit over the water.
So Ely went back to Mare Island and told of his field tests. He wanted 50-pound bags at 3-foot intervals. Gatewood had spent the Navy’s $500 on timber, so Captain Pond and Ely used their own money for sandbags, the necessary line, and guard rails. Gene told how the lines sometimes slewed the plane out of control and Pond promised to rig heavy awnings beside the platform where it was narrower than the ship. “If you skid too far,” he said, “they’ll keep you from being skewered on one of those stanchions.”
Chambers had proposed that during the landing the ship should steam into the wind. Pond did not think the deep water area of the bay big enough. Ely thought the open sea, outside the Golden Gate, too far from Tanforan. He was more afraid of the ocean than of any landing. He was sure he could land aboard with the ship standing still. So it was agreed that the ship would be anchored. They all hoped it would swing into the wind at the right time.
The next morning the ship left the Navy Yard in a fog so thick she rammed a channel buoy before anchoring with the Fleet off the Ferry Building. That night the weather turned bad and for a week the ship logged rain in almost every watch. So they had to wait for better weather.
Curtiss, Ellyson, and Ely visited the ship one stormy day. As they left, reporters asked Glenn Curtiss for his opinion. “This is the first time an aviator has attempted to land on a battleship,” he answered. “Ely will alight on the Pennsylvania. I’m willing to guarantee that much. The only question is, can he do it without damaging his machine?”
No one had yet been killed in a Curtiss machine. Glenn wanted to keep it that way. Until he left town, he kept on urging Ely to give up the stunt. Bad weather automatically extended San Francisco’s air meet because its promoters had signed the pilots for ten flying days. Curtiss was bored. Even though exhibition flying was almost his only source of income, he did not like it. Since he did not drink and gamble like his daredevils, this waiting for exhibition weather was even duller. He wanted to work on his hydro down in San Diego. Furthermore, he knew he could not stop Ely, and he did not want to be there if he failed. So he left town.
On the seventeenth, the weather improved and Ely announced that he would land on the Pennsylvania at 1100 the following morning. Eleven o’clock had been picked so as to give any morning fog time to burn off and because the flood tide would then head the ship into the usual light west wind from the Golden Gate.
This forecast was only partially accurate. The next morning, the ships, anchored south of Goat Island (now known as Yerba Buena), rode to the flood tide but, by 1100, a light wind out of the east was coming from behind them. High clouds hid the sun. This 3-knot breeze filled the Pennsylvania’s canvas backstop like a mainsail running free. The sandbag lines were taut and evenly spaced along the platform’s guide rails. Captain Pond put crews in lifeboats alongside and stationed strong swimmers at the ship’s rail. Then he took Mrs. Ely to the after bridge. Launches and chartered tugs carrying several hundred people surrounded the ship. Thousands of spectators crowded the San Francisco docks and peered at the ship through the haze.
7. Sailors came running to give Ely a hand, while the crowd cheered wildly, and the harbor whistles announced the successful landing aboard the Pennsylvania.
8. Gene Ely was calmer than anyone else aboard the ship “. . . there was never any doubt in my mind that I would effect a successful landing on the deck,” he said “. . . had the ship been in motion and sailing directly into the wind, my landing . . . would have been made considerably easier. . . .”
Twelve miles south at Tanforan, infantrymen helped Ely’s mechanics ready the plane. Ely wore an inflated bicycle tube over his stained leather jacket. The tube left his arms freer than the life jacket he had worn on the flight from the Birmingham. He tied on a padded football helmet, hung his goggles around his neck, and climbed to his seat.
Everything clicked. At 1048, right on schedule, he was off, the engine purring smoothly as the plane climbed to 1,200 feet and swung across the green San Bruno hills. Below, San Francisco’s waterfront zigzagged from Hunter’s Point to the Ferry Building. Off shore, scattered craft smudged the bay with smoke. Beyond them, haze hid the anchored fleet.
A couple of minutes after Ely turned east out over the dull, green water, he made out the line of ships. He nosed over toward the nearest one. When he rounded the West Virginia, and headed up the line toward Goat Island, he was down to 400 feet. The steam trailing from each ship’s whistle as he swooped by told him that he would be landing with the wind behind his shoulder. It was fortunate that he had practiced cross-wind landings along a chalk line.
The plane passed the Pennsylvania’s stern at topmast height, and Ely checked the platform as he flew along her starboard side. Rounding the bow, he flew aft along her port side. One hundred yards astern he banked steeply, throttled his engine, and headed for the platform. The nearest planks were 50 feet ahead when he cut his switch. In the sudden quiet, he heard himself say:
“This is it.”
It looked good. But suddenly, just as he expected to land, an updraft boosted the machine. He saw the weighted lines scooting past, ten feet below. He pushed the wheel, dove at the deck. Then the spring hooks snagged the eleventh and succeeding lines. They stopped him easily with room to spare.
Cheering people surrounded the plane. Ely slid from his seat and his wife, bursting through the crowd, flung herself into his arms, kissed his cold face, and shouted:
“Oh, boy! I knew you could do it.”
Captain Pond started pumping Gene’s hand and then, for the benefit of the photographers, he kissed Mabel. He declared it the most important landing since the dove flew back to the Ark. Then he maneuvered his guests down to the quarter-deck; at the cabin hatch, he turned to the officer of the deck and gave an order that was destined to become historic.
9. Mabel Ely, the flier’s wife, kissed him and shouted, “I knew you could do it!” Captain C. F. Pond announced it was the most important landing since the dove flew back to the Ark.
“Mr. Luckel,” he said. “Let me know when the plane is respotted and ready for takeoff.”
Thus originated the order—“respot the deck”—that would later start many a carrier’s crew into action.
In the captain’s cabin, officers and guests lifted champagne glasses and toasted “Ely” and “the birth of naval aviation.”
In a short while the gay party