The Aeromaine 39B was used extensively as a training aircraft during WW I. It also contributed to the advancement of Naval Aviation as a resultof the landing experiments it was involved in on USS Langley (CV-1) in 1922.

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By Roy Grossnick

The age-old controversy about whichcame first, the chicken or the egg, mightalso raise the question, “Did the Navyhave airplanes first or pilots?” Theanswer is easy. The Navy had a pilotbefore it accepted its first airplane.

On December 23, 1910, Lieutenant T.G. Ellyson was ordered to report to theGlenn Curtiss Aviation Camp for flighttraining. On May 8, 1911, the Navyordered its first aircraft, a Curtisspusher. Designated the A-1 Triad, theaircraft was flown by Lt. Ellyson on July1, 1911. The A-1 Triad was a generalpurpose aircraft that performed a varietyo f m iss ions / func t i ons , i nc lud ingtraining. It was the Navy’s first trainer —an experimental and general purposeaircraft — in a long line of trainingaircraft.

During Naval Aviation’s infancy, manyof the planes served both as training andexperimental aircraft, in addition toperforming the mission for which theywere designed and built. Perhaps one ofthe better known early planes used as atrainer was the Curtiss F-boat. It evolvedfrom an early Curtiss pusher flying boatand was the first flying boat received bythe Navy. The Curtiss F-boat, alsoknown as the C-1 through C-5, or AB-1through AB-5, had many variationswith in i ts model designat ion. Theaircraft had a wood hull with wood andfabric wings supported by a 100-hp OXXCurtiss engine. The student and theinstructor sat side by side in a singlecockpit.

T h e F - b o a t w a s t e s t e d a tHammondsport, N.Y., by Lt. Ellyson onNovember 30, 1912. It was put toimmediate use as a trainer and also inexperimental testing. On December 17,1912, Lt. Ellyson, flying the F-boat, madea successful catapult launch at theWashington Navy Yard. This wasfollowed by operational experiments atGuantanamo Bay, Cuba, during fleetm a n e u v e r s i n t h e e a r l y p a r t o f1 9 1 3 . . . i n c l u d i n g f l e e t s c o u t i n g ,exerc ises in spo t t i ng m ines andsubmerged submar ines, bombing,aer ia l pho tography and w i re lesstransmission.

The F-boat became one of the earlytraining planes at Pensacola, Fla., whenthe first aviation flying school wasestablished there on January 20, 1914.Shortly after, two aviation detachments

were ordered to sail from Pensacola inresponse to the crisis in Mexico. OnApril 25, 1914, Lieutenant Junior GradeP. N. L. Bellinger flew the first U.S. navalaircraft against another country — theAB-3, a Curtiss F-boat. The flight was anobservation mission to reconnoiter thecity of Veracruz, Mexico, and to searchfor mines in the harbor. Bellinger madeanother flight in the AB-3 on April 28 tophotograph the harbor. After the actionat Veracruz, the aviation detachments,which included not only qualified pilotsand aviation support personnel but alsostudent pilots, returned to Pensacola toresume training.

In the early days when the number ofplanes was limited, student pilots andtraining planes played an active role inoperational commitments for the fleet.The triple role of the F-boat in training,operational missions and experimentalf ly ing cont inued after the histor icmission in Veracruz. After a series ofsuccessful launchings of the AB-2 flyingboat from a barge in Pensacola in April1915, the decision was made to installcatapults aboard ship.

On November 5, 1915, LieutenantCommander H. C. Mustin, in an AB-2,made the first catapult launch from aship, flying off the stern of USS NorthCarolina in Pensacola Bay.

Further catapult tests were conductedon North Carolina, culminating in thefinal calibration flight by Lieutenant G.deC. Chevalier on July 12, 1916, in theAB-3 when the ship was underway inPensacola Bay. Thus, North Carolinabecame the first U.S. ship equipped tocarry and operate aircraft, opening up anew frontier for Naval Aviation and navalwarfare.

The Curtiss F-boat continued todemonstrate the adaptabi l i ty andpractical use of the early training aircraftuntil it began to be replaced by theCurtiss MF models towards the close ofWW I.

I n 1 9 1 6 , t h e N a v y i s s u e dspecifications for a training aircraftcapable of land or sea operations. TheAeromarine Plane and Motor Companysubmitted a twin-pontoon design whichcould be converted to a landplane — theAeromarine 39A, the first of which werereceived by the Navy in 1917. The 39Awas a wood and fabric biplane poweredby a 100-hp Hall-Scott A-7A engine. Tomeet Navy specifications, the wing spanwas enlarged to increase the liftingpower necessary for water takeoffs. Theupper wing span was 47 feet and the

lower wing span 36 feet.Other modifications were made and

the aircraft was designated Aeromarine39B. It was similar to the 39A except thatit was fitted with a 100-hp Curtiss OXX-6engine, used a single-pontoon designwith two supporting wing floats and hadthe vertical tail enlarged with a fixed fin.The additions made the Aeromarine 39Ba stable and reliable platform. It wasused extensively as a training planeduring WW I but its most significantcontribution lay in the experiments itwas involved with in 1922.

Slow speed control and landingcharacteristics made the Aeromarine39B an excellent plane for the firstcarrier landing trials. It was fitted with adevice similar to a modern tail hook,designed to catch the cross-deckarresting cables and bring the plane to astop. Alignment hooks attached to theundercarriage assisted the plane in itsalignment with longitudinal wires on thedeck, and kept it from veering to theright or left when it landed.

On October 26, 1922, Lt.Cdr. G. deC.Chevalier, flying an Aeromarine 39B,made the first landing aboard USSLang ley while she was underway.Carrier landing experiments with theAeromarine 39B continued through theremainder of 1922 and into 1923. InF e b r u a r y 1 9 2 3 , a s q u a d r o n o fAeromarine 39Bs completed a series oftests showing that successive carrierlandings could be accomplished in ashort period of time and that squadronscould successfully operate aboard acarrier. This was one of the first steps inthe development of the modern carrierair wing.

In 1922, flight deck trials in carriertakeoffs were also going on, using VE-7sbuilt by Lewis and Vought Corporation,which had originally been developed foruse in WW I as advanced trainers.However the Curtiss JN-4H, a modifiedJN-4D primary trainer with a 150-hpWright-Hispano engine, became theadvanced trainer instead of the VE-7which was not produced until after thewar.

The VE-7, consequently, did not gointo production until after WW I ended.While it was procured as a two-seattrainer, it was used primarily as a single-seat fighter and observation plane. OnOctober 17, 1922, Lieutenant V.C.Griffin, in a Vought VE-7SF, completedthe first takeoff from the flight deck of aU.S. carrier, Langley. The VE-7 was alsoused later in carrier landing experiments

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along with the Aeromarine 39B. Thus,the first flight operations from a U.S.carrier were conducted by trainingaircraft.

The Cur t i ss JN a i r c ra f t se r iesprobably represented the best knownAmerican aircraft from the WW I era.They were used as trainers by the U.S.Navy, U.S. Army and Royal Canadian AirForce during the war. However, theirfame does not rest on their use asmilitary training aircraft. The Curtiss JNseries is known throughout the world asthe Jenny. They became famous afterthe war when they were placed on themarket as cheap, war-surplus planesand were purchased by avid aviators.They were flown by early barnstormingg roups t ha t t ou red t he coun t r y ,exposing the public to the thrills offlying. Many a budding aviator receivedhis or her first flight in a Jenny.

The Jenny was a structure of woodand cloth held together by a maze ofwire. Without the wire, the Jenny wouldnever have gotten off the ground. It wasinitially powered by a 90-hp Curtissengine but the later series carried the150-hp Wright-Hispano engine.

On December 12, 1918, an Army JN-4operated by Lieutenant A.W. Redfield,USA, was used in an experiment todetermine the feasibility of carrying anaircraft aboard airships. The JN-4 waslifted by the C-1 airship, piloted byLieutenant George Crompton, USN, toan altitude of 2,500 feet and released fora free flight back to the ground.

P rocu remen t o f t he JN se r i escont inued af ter WW I for use aslandplane trainers by the Navy andMarine Corps. It is estimated that 6,759of the JN series were produced.

The Curtiss N-9, evolved from the JNseries, and was probably the mostfamous Navy plane of its era. It wasdeveloped as a seaplane trainer duringWW I and was used well beyond thepostwar years. During its lifespan, the N-9 achieved many firsts and was involvedin a variety of experiments.

The N-9 was the Navy’s first trulysatisfactory training plane — the firstnaval aircraft developed on the basis ofwind tunnel data, accumulated in testson the JN-2 conducted by NavalConstructor /Aerodynamic ist J . C.Hunsaker.

The Navy received its first N-9 in thelatter part of 1916 and during WW I N-9scomprised roughly 40 percent of allNavy trainers. As the major trainingplane, it was undoubtedly involved in

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training the more than 2,500 aviatorswho received their Navy wings duringthe war.

The N-9 was employed in experimentsin 1916-17 to put Naval Aviation aboardships. Aircraft catapults were installedon several cruisers, and the N-9 wasused to develop operating techniquesfor launching aircraft from ships. Thetests were designed to show thereliability of the equipment involved inoperating aircraft from ships. It was notu n t i l a f t e r W W I t h a t N a v a lConstructor/Aerodynamicist Holden C.Richardson developed the compressedair turntable catapult and successfullytested it with an N-9 on October 26,1921, which led to the permanentins ta l l a t i on o f ca tapu l t s aboardbattleships.

On February 13, 1917, Captain FrancisT. Evans, USMC, performed the firstloop and spin recovery with an N-9seaplane. An earlier experiment with theN-9 did not fare as well. One of the N-9shad been delivered to the WashingtonNavy Yard for use in bomb tests at IndianHead, Md. During a test on November 6,1916, Lieutenants C. K. Bronson andLuther Welch were killed when a bomb,being launched by hand, explodedprematurely.

Several N-9s were used as testvehicles by the Bureau of Ordnance. OnOctober 17, 1916, a pilotless N-9,conver ted to an au tomat i c f l y ingmachine, was successfully launched.The plane flew the prescribed coursebut failed to land at a preset range. Thelast entry in this experiment states, “Theplane was last seen over the Bay ShoreAir Station at an altitude of 4,000 feet,flying straight to eastward.”

Eleven years later, on September 15,1929, a pilotless N-9 equipped with radiocontrol was successfully launched on a40-minute flight and brought back for alanding. It sustained damage on landingand sank offshore. However, this testwith the N-9 proved the capability ofradio-controlled aircraft and was thebeginning of a significant Naval Aviationcomponent, the guided missile.

The Navy acquired 560 N-9s thelargest number of production modelaircraft built for the Navy, with theexception of the Curtiss HS-2L flyingboat. It was not until the buildup beforeWW II that the Navy procured a largernumber of an aircraft model, the N3N,another trainer. N-9s continued to beused as trainers in the postwar perioduntil they began to be slowly replaced by

the Boeing NB-1s and 2s, and werefinally phased out between 1927 and1926. The N-9 marked the spirit ofd e v e l o p m e n t i n t h e N a v y a n dcontributed to the major mission forwhich it was designed, the training ofNaval Aviators.

A variety of training aircraft followedthe phaseout of the WW l-era planes.

On December 16, 1925, competitivetrials for land, sea gunnery and trainingp l a n e s w e r e c o m p l e t e d a t N A SAnacostia, leading to the procurementof the Consolidated NY series aircraft.The NY was a variant of an aircraftdesigned for the Army as a trainer, andthe arrival of the NY-1 in 1926 was theNavy’s first use of aircraft built byConsolidated.

The NYs were used as the standardprimary trainers and also as gunnerytrainers. They were large biplanescapable of being converted for eitherland or seaplane service. During the late1920s and early 1930s the NY was themajor aircraft used for the primarytraining of regular Navy and MarineCorps pilots, as well as the reserves.They remained the primary trainers untilreplaced by the N3N and N2S series inthe mid-1930s. The last NY left navalservice in 1939.

The development of the N3N YellowPeril series in 1935 was the beginning ofone of the Navy’s most famous trainingaircraft. The Bureau of Aeronauticssubmitted a request to the Naval AircraftFactory (NAF) at Phi ladelphia onFebruary 9, 1935, for a training plane,specifying that it be a biplane with atractor engine-driven propeller. TheXN3N-1 was the preliminary designdeve loped by NAF ’s eng ineer ingdivision and during tests it was found tohave some s tab i l i t y and con t ro lproblems which led to changes in the tailsurfaces and the fuselage. The enginewas moved forward and the tail surfacesmoved aft to help correct the flightcharacteristics. Fl ight tests of themodified version were concluded atNAS Pensacola on March 16, 1936, and,tha t summer , tes t i ng o f t he f i r s tproduction N3N-1 was successfullycompleted at NAS Anacostia. The firstproduction model N3Ns were equippedw i t h f l o a t s a n d r e p l a c e d t h eConsolidated NY Yellow Perils.

The N3N-1 was an all-metal structurewith fabric covering, powered by aWright Whirlwind R-790 engine, rated at220 hp. The plane was designed to beoperated with wheel landing gear or as a

The NY was themajor aircraft usedfor primary trainingin the late 1920s andearly 1930s. The NYs h o w n h e r e i sc a r r y i n g G r e a tLakes markings.

The N-9 was used in a variety ofro les and made m a j o rcontributions to the advance-ment of Naval Aviation.

The JN was used as a trainerduring WW I. It gained worldwide recognition during thepost-WW I era as a barnstorm-ing aircraft.