Curtiss R series served as both trainer and ASW aircraft in WW I. The R-6L shown above was used for torpedo launching.

somewhat surprised to find that Ellyson,not Curtiss, would be training him. Thetraining field, said Towers, “was a littlecow pasture where they kept the trainingplanes and a few old wrecks in a sort of anold barn.” The field was barely a quarter-mile long and ended in Lake Keuka. Assmall as the aircraft was, it was still toobig for the little field. The aviators had totake off toward the lake when they couldget a favorable wind, and do their flyingover the water. Towers later recalled twooccasions when the aircraft landed in thelake itself.

Ellyson began training Towers with thesame format that Curtiss had used —ground runs. He whittled a small plug ofwood and placed it under the throttle toact as a governor, so his student wouldnot attain flight speed and leave theground. Ellyson tested conditions beforeletting Towers get in the plane. He madea ground run to his own satisfaction andthen turned the craft over to Towers,assuring him that he could run at fullthrottle with the governor and not leave

the ground. On his first run, a puff of windcaught Towers and he found himselfflying the airplane 20 feet in the airwithout the slightest idea of how to fly orhow to land. He crashed. The plane waswrecked and Towers broke an ankle.Neither the student nor the instructorhad stopped to consider that Ellysonweighed 25 pounds more than Towers.The difference in poundage, along withthe puff of wind, got them a wreckedaircraft and an injured student.

Aviation training was not confined forlong to the Curtiss and Wright factories.In August 1911, those officers on duty atHammondsport and Dayton receivedorders to report for duty at theEngineering Experiment Station at theNaval Academy “... in connection withthe test of gasoline motors and otherexperimental work in the development ofaviation, including instruction at theaviation school.” The site of the aviationcamp at the Academy was GreenburyPoint.

The Greenbury Point station has not

come in for its fair measure of recognitionin the history of Naval Aviation. It was avery small affair, and it shared its locationw i t h t h e A c a d e m y a s i t s h o s t .Nonetheless, its establishment was alandmark event, It was the Navy’s first airstation and it was at Greenbury Point thatthe Navy began to conduct its first formalaviation training program.

One of the most notable aspects ofaviation at that time was how littleanyone knew about it. In later years, thestories told by pioneer aviators revealedan almost comical ignorance. Bellingerrecounted an event that occurred early in1913 when the aviators were on theirfirst exercises with the fleet. Aloft in hisaircraft over Guantanamo Bay, Bellingerwas testing his ability to track asubmerged submarine in the clearwaters below. The test went well and hetracked the sub successfully until he sawit heading directly into a large mass ofsubmerged rock. At the point where helost sight of the sub, he was certain it hadmet with misfortune until he saw it

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surface. When he was back ashore, thecaptain of the vessel was surprised byBellinger’s story and explained that therocks were considerably below the depthof his submarine. At that point, the NavalAviators realized they had a lot to learnabout visual depth perception from anairplane.

Everything the aviators did with theaircraft of those days seemed to fall intothe category of training. The aircraft inuse at the time were of both thelandplane and seaplane type, all used astrainers. The early planes were thebamboo-tail type.

The first one the Navy bought wascalled the Triad by its builder GlennCurtiss and was designated the A-1 bythe Navy. The A-1 was a 28-foot-longbiplane with an empty weight of 1,065pounds. It had a wing span of 37 feet andwas about nine feet high. It was poweredby a Curtiss 75-horsepower, 8-cylinderengine with a 7-foot, 9-inch woodenpropeller behind the pilot. The A-1 was aseaplane built on a single central floatwith a small float at each wing tip, andalso had a tricycle wheel arrangementthat could be used for land operations.The A-1 was equipped with partial dualcontrols. It had a bench seat toaccommodate the pilot and passengereither of whom could control the aircraft.There was only one stick, in the form of asteering wheel, that could be shifted rightto left to allow either person to use it to flythe plane. These early machines had noinstruments and flew at 55 to 60 mph.The whole point of training was to teachthe student how to get the plane into theair, keep it aloft and under control, andfinally land it safely.

It was not until April 1913 that theN a v y e s t a b l i s h e d t r u l y f o r m a lperformance standards for qualificationas a flyer. Until then there had been nocertificate issued by the Navy designatingan officer as qualified to operate anairplane, so there was no need forstandards. On April 10, 1913, theSecretary approved the standards andauthorized issuing certification as aNaval Air Pilot to a successful candidate.But it was not until April 1914 that theBureau of Navigation, which hadcognizance over all Navy training,approved formal courses of instructionf o r s t u d e n t f l y e r s a n d a v i a t i o nmechanics.

Curtiss N-9 was an essential part of thetraining fleet in WW I. The Navy procuredlarge numbers of this version of the famousArmy “Jenny.”

In January 1914 the Navy flyers founda permanent home. Greenbury Point wastoo small and the weather did not lenditself to aviation exercises the year round.The aviators had resumed some work atSan Diego, but North Island was not yetNavy property. Available was the old,abandoned navy yard at Pensacola, Fla.

By this time, the Navy had accumulatedthree years of actual flight experience.The small group of flyers numberedmostly lieutenants, JGs and someensigns. There was one lieutenantcommander, Henry C. Mustin. As theranking aviator, M u s t i n h a d t h eresponsibi l i ty to turn the unusedPensacola Navy Yard into a functioningair station.

Pensacola immediately became thecenter for Naval Air activities. Training,experiments, test, evaluat ion andmodification soon became commonplacea c t i v i t i e s . B e c a u s e t h e a v i a t o r senvisioned the integration of aircraft withfleet operations, it was necessary forthem to develop some type of catapult tolaunch planes from the decks of ships.Their ear l iest work with poweredcatapults was conducted at Annapolis in1912. By November 1915, a shipboardcatapult had been developed to the pointwhere Lt.Cdr. Mustin was launched in anAB-2 from the stern of North Carolina inPensacola Bay.

The need for a catapult placed arequirement on naval flyers that Armyand commercial pilots did not have.When the Bureau of Navigation issued itsCourse of Instructions and RequiredQualifications of Personnel for the AirService of the Navy, January 1916, itrevealed the distinctive character ofNaval Aviation. The syllabus included“Starts from Catapults” and “Landing inDeep Sea Waves.” The same syllabus

listed 11 classifications for personnelassigned to aeronautic duty. An officercould be designated Student NavalAviator; Naval Aviator; Navy Air Pilot,aeroplane; Navy Air Pilot, dirigible;Military Aviator. An enlisted member onthe other hand could be Student Airman;Airman; Quartermaster, aeroplane;Quartermaster, dirigible; Machinist,aeronautic.

It is interesting to note that by the timethis syllabus was issued, the Navy hadalready ordered its f irst dir igible.Designated the DN-1, this lighter-than-air vehicle was built by the ConnecticutAircraft Co. but it did not arrive atPensacola until April 1917.

For the first three years of its existence,Naval Aviation was confined entirely tothe Regular Navy. Early in 1914,however, the government acted toincrease the efficiency of the NationalNaval Militia. Empowered by a new lawthat year, the Secretary of the NavyJosephus Daniels issued a general orderestablishing the Aeronautic Force of theNaval Militia. In this new division of themilitia, officers were commissioned onlyfor aviation duty. They received thoroughtraining i n N a v y d i s c i p l i n e a n dprocedures, besides learning to fly. Theyalso learned the principles of scoutingoperations. Enlisted members alsoserved in the Aeronautic Force of theNaval Militia. Training of officers andmen was conducted at the state militialevel in the same manner as the rest ofthe Naval Militia.

The expense of these state aeronauticf o r c e s w a s b o r n e b y t h e s t a t e sthemselves and by private subscription.The Aero Club of America proved to be avaluable motive force in acquiringaircraft and money for use in developingthis branch of naval aeronautics. New

York and Massachusetts were the firststates to establish an Aeronautic Force intheir Naval Militias, but by the time theUnited States entered WW I, 11 morestates and the District of Columbia hadfollowed the New York lead.

Besides the Naval Militias, there wasalso a Naval Reserve Flying Corps. TheNaval Appropriation Act of fiscal year1917, passed August 29, 1916, providedfor the establishment of a Naval ReserveForce, to include a Reserve Flying Corps.The officers and men of the new flyingreserve were to train at Pensacola. Thisapproach taxed the Pensacola facilitiesbecause they were barely adequate tohandle the small annual classes offeredfor the Regular Navy. A sizable number ofstudents who came to Pensacola asreservists had little familiarity with basicNavy subjects and had to learn them. Thea e r o n a u t i c s i n s t r u c t o r s f o u n dthemselves having to go over materialthat was regularly taught to midshipmenat the Naval Academy. This situationposed an additional problem because insome cases candidates would finishbasic indoctrination and begin flighttraining, only to learn that they wereeither physically or temperamentally notsuited for aviation.

The number of students coming toPensacola was large enough to establisha need for additional training aircraft and,in the fall of 1916, the Navy ordered aconsiderable number of N-9 aircraft fromC u r t i s s , B o e i n g , B u r g e s s , a n dAeromarine. The R-6 was also orderedfrom Curtiss.

The naval aeronautical establishmententered WW I as a very smallorganization. In no way can it be said thatNaval Aviation was ready to fight a war.There were 54 aircraft in the inventory.But the structure of the organization wassurprisingly sound. A good curriculumhad been established and there was aclear understanding of operations. Therewere not enough men, facilities orequipment to f ight a war, but thefoundation to build on was solid enoughto take the strain.

The Navy moved to expand Pensacola’sfacilities and establish other stations astraining sites, but it was impossible toexpand fast enough to absorb thenumbers of men entering the Navy. Somecoastal militia stations were taken overfor training; lighter-than-air training wasestablished at the Goodyear plant atAkron, Ohio; and ground instruction wasbegun at the Massachusetts Institute ofTechnology.

Courses in military training at civilianuniversities had no true precedent in theUnited States, although they had becomenearly a tradition in England. The choiceby the Navy of MIT was a natural onebecause Naval Constructor JeromeHunsaker had previously been oncampus teaching at the AeronauticalEngineering School. In the summer of1917, arrangements were made withMIT by which students would arrive oncampus in groups of 50 every two weeksup to 200 students at a time. A two-month course of instruction would beprovided by the faculty covering aircraftengines, theory of flight, general flying,gunnery, signalling and wireless, andgeneral naval studies. The Navy wouldfurnish one officer in a supervisorycapacity to oversee the instruction, andcommand the students and a handful ofenlisted men qualified to teach basicNavy subjects.

The Navy detailed Lieutenant JuniorGrade Edward H. McKitterick to MIT, asofficer in charge and to organize theprogram. Lt. McKitterick was a NavalAviator on duty at Pensacola whenassigned to the University. He arrived atCambridge late in July 1917, where hefound the facilities waiting as promisedby the University but absolutely noorganization, which was his job toprovide. He had one advantage — MIThad already set up a similar program forthe Army, so there was a precedent.McKitterick availed himself of everythingto be had and soon got the program going.

The cou rse o f i ns t ruc t i on wasinteresting enough to deserve sometelling in detail. The program was at firstorganized in a 40-hour week: five hoursfor navigation, six for signalling, five forNavy regulations, six for seamanship,five for boat drill and calisthenics, five fordr i l l , f ive for study, and three forexaminations. As time passed therewere, of course, changes. Courses wereadded and existing ones expanded. Iteventually burgeoned to a total coursetime of 428 hours for eight weeks, whichyielded 108 hours more than the 40-hourweek provided. Finally, the programextended to 10 weeks, and the hourswere expanded to a total of 440. Achronic complaint throughout the warwas that Naval Aviation training, at alllevels, attempted to do too much in thetime allotted.

Also established at MIT was theInspectors School, which trained men toinspect the quality of aviation materialbeing accepted by the Navy from

manufacturers. An aerography schoolwas set up to train students in thescience of meteorology as it pertained toaviation, which was Naval Aviation’sinitial venture into this important aspectof aeronautics.

The training at MIT lasted throughoutthe war, and the final class graduated inJanuary 1919. By that time, the MITdetachment had graduated 3,622candidates.

MIT was not the only university to havean impact on Naval Aviation during theconflict. Some of the more colorful unitsin aviation training during WW I camefrom the universities. Yale, Harvard andPrinceton organized groups of studentsto train in the Naval Reserve Flying Corps.The Navy’s first university unit of reserveaviators came from Yale where thestudents had begun to organize anaviation unit prior to their country’s entryinto the conflict being waged in Europe.

In June 1916, F. Trubee Davison’s Yalecrew was training for its traditional racewith Harvard. The decision by PresidentWilson to send troops to the southernborder to counter a threat of war withMexico turned Davison’s attention fromoars to aircraft. He contacted the AeroC l u b o f A m e r i c a w h i c h h a dcongressional blessing to organize anAerial Coastal Patrol. As mentionedabove, the Ae ro C lub had c loseinvolvement with the Naval Militia’s airdivision. Davison hoped to involve theAero Club in a project to teach his YaleGroup how to fly.

The Aero Club put him in touch with aw e a l t h y P h i l a d e l p h i a n , R o d m a nWanamaker, who out of his own pocketfurnished Davison with a Curtiss flyingboat and an instructor named DavidMcCulloch. It was McCulloch and theCurtiss flying boat that taught the Yaleunit to fly, and it was the Aero Club ofAmerica that enrolled them as membersof the Aerial Coastal Patrol. The unittrained at the submarine base at NewLondon, Conn. In the spring of 1917, theywere enrolled by the Navy in the Reserve,and qual i f ied a s N a v y f l y e r s a tHuntington, Long Island.

The Yale unit — and those fromHarvard and Princeton — demonstratedthe extent of civilian interest in aviationand the conviction that aircraft couldeffectively serve the Navy. When warcame, some members of the unit wentoverseas into command positions atshore facilities, while others saw action.David Ingalls, Yale Class of 1920, becamethe Navy’s first ace.

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The actual structure of flight trainingremained virtually the same throughoutthe war. Af ter ground school , thestudents entered elementary flighttraining. The elementary course was 10weeks long. It was a continuation ofground school for the most part, of whichflying was only a small portion. The firstsession involved 10 hours of dual flyingand 20 hours solo. This was followed bys tun t i ng — w h i c h b y t h e n w a srecognized as good experience — in bothdual and solo. Finally, there were fivehours of dual and 10 hours of solo in thebig flying boats. Elementary training wasfollowed by three to four months ofadvanced training. The advanced coursetaught navigation, gunnery and bombing.All flyers earned their final qualificationin the large flying boats.

T h e t r a i n i n g a i r c r a f t w e r e a l lseaplanes. The Curtiss F-boat, the H-12,the N-9, and the R series all saw heavyuse as training machines. The H-12 wasbuilt at the Naval Aircraft Factory to aCurtiss’ design and was used solely fortraining and patrol of United Statescoastal waters; it did not get overseasduring WW I.

In England, an eight-week armamentcourse was given at Uxbridge. A course atRockhampton taught kite ballooning.Some Navy flyers trained at Bolsena,Italy, in the Macchi L-3, and M-5, and inthe Caproni landplane. Training was alsoconducted at some bases in Ireland.

Because the Northern Bombing Groupplanned to operate at night, training forthis type of flying was consideredessential. Night instruction was offeredin the United States, England and Italy.But this was not new to U.S. NavalAviation; the early flyers had practicednight operations at Pensacola before thewar.

The training of flyers for operation oflighter-than-air craft was conducted inelementary and advanced sessions.Elementary training was given at Akron,Ohio, at the Kite and Free Balloon Schooles tab l i shed by con t rac t w i th theGoodyear Company. All students weret r a i n e d i n f r e e b a l l o o n i n g a n dsubsequently divided between kiteballooning and operation of dirigibles. Alladvanced training in dirigibles wasconducted at Pensacola. The LTAstudents took the same courses innavigation, seamanship, motors, radioand photography as did the trainees inheavier-than-air flight. Advanced LTAwork called for 20 flights totaling 15hours with an instructor. There were no

Curtiss H-12 planing just before takeoff. The H-12s procured by the Navy were used fortraining and ASW over U.S. coastal waters.

solo flights possible in dirigible trainingor operations. These pilots took gunneryinstruction in seaplanes but practicedbombing from their dirigibles.

The Navy aeronautics ground and flightschools throughout the United Stateswere under Supervisor, Naval ReserveFlying Corps, Lt. John H. Towers, whohad trained under Lt. Ellyson at theCurtiss factory in 1911. All trainingmanuals were published by authority ofthe Bureau of Navigation. By the end ofthe war, about 3,000 aviators and groundo f f i c e r s h a d b e e n t r a i n e d a n dcommissioned, while an additional 4,000were in training when hostilities ceased.Technical training in aeronautics hadbeen given to over 35,000 men.

At the end of the war, rapiddemobilization greatly reduced the navalaeronautic establishment. There werealso some important developments inadmin i s t ra t i on . I n Augus t 1919 ,complete responsibility for the detail andtraining of personnel in aviationphotography, aerography and navigationinstruments was assigned to the Bureauof Navigation, but Naval Aviation itselfremained a splintered affair. The Bureauo f S t e a m E n g i n e e r i n g h a d t h eresponsibility for aircraft engines whileConstruction and Repair had cognizanceover airframes. There was a Director ofNaval Aviation in the Aviation Section ofthe Chief of Naval Operations' office.

This desperate arrangement waslargely solved i n 1 9 2 1 w i t h t h ee s t a b l i s h m e n t o f t h e B u r e a u o fAeronautics. But the assignment ofresponsibility for training was far from

clearcut. The Bureau of Aeronautics hada training section in its Flight Division,but Navigation still exercised control overaviat ion training. Navigat ion wasrequired to receive and consider therecommendations which Aeronauticssubmitted on all matters concerningtraining, but implementation of theserecommendations was not required andcertainly not always carried out. Manypoints of contention were inevitable.

Aeronautics, for example, might try togain authorization to increase thenumber o f men in av ia t i on , butNavigation would oppose it because of afeeling that such action might upset theNavy’s equilibrium. Aeronautics alwaysmaintained that because aviation was aspecialty, aviators should not have toserve tours of sea duty in non-aviationstatus. Navigation opposed this positionon the grounds that Navy flyers werenaval officers and should have the sameexperience as all other naval officers.Aeronautics would prepare syllabi andtraining manuals but had to submit themto Navigation for approval. Aeronauticsbelieved certain specialty schools werenecessary; Navigation uniformly balkedat approving them. Such was thesituation in Naval Aviation training in theearly 1920s. n

Special appreciation is extended toL e e M . P e a r s o n f o r h i s c a r e f u laccumulat ion and preservat ion o fdocuments which made this essaypossible.

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