Marker at Willoughby Visitor's Center:
First Flight Ship to Shore
On 14 November, 1910, Eugene Ely in a Curtiss built "Hudson Flyer," utilizing a specially constructed platform with an uptilt at the end, took off from the cruiser Birmingham anchored off Fort Monroe and landed at Willoughby spit, 2½ miles distant, thus completing the first flight from ship to shore and the first flight to utilize the "Ski Jump" deck. This was the birth of Naval aviation.
Erected by the Virginia Aeronautical historical Society, 1982
Eugene Ely, the self-taught flier from the West Coast, was an exception [to daredevil fliers]. Chambers found him an amiable man. Curtiss liked and trusted him more than his other pilots. Unlike the daredevils, Ely had a logical theory of flight and a ken interest in the machines. He spent a lot of his time on the ground working with Glen Curtiss. Both men were interested in producing aeroplanes that would be more useful than merely providing sport....
As naval aviation grew and spread into the Fleet, some unknown individual coined two terms which distinguished enthusiast for naval aviation from their more conservative and skeptical brother officers. it derived quite naturally from an aspect of their dress. all naval officers wore black shoes; the aviators, brown shoes. Thus, flying officers were "brown shoes," while shipboard officers became the "black shoes."
On 3 November 1910, another air show opened at Halethorpe Field near Baltimore...[where] only two Curtiss planes fly. One of those was flown by Eugene Ely. Ely was feeling pretty confident. He like to fly. He was making the money and a good name in an exciting business, which promised an unlimited future. His wife, Mabel, was also an aviation fan...
During their conversation, Cambers mentioned he had just asked Wilbur Wright for a pilot and a plane to fly from a ship. Wright had flatly refused all help, saying it was too dangerous...
Gene Ely quickly asked for the job. "I've wanted to do that for some time," he told the surprised captain. Ely would furnish his own plane and he asked for no fee. He had three reasons for his eagerness. He had argued shipboard takeoffs with other fliers and he wanted to show them it could be done, he wanted the publicity, and he wanted to do a patriotic service...
["Acting" Secretary] Winthrop...rushed the Birmingham, commanded by Captain W.B. Fletcher, to the Norfolk Navy yard and told the yard commandant to help equip her with the ramp which Constructor McEntee had designed. The ship was a scout cruiser, with four tall stacks. her open bridge was but one level above the flush main deck. On her forecastle, sailors sawed and nailed until they finished an 83-foot ramp which sloped at five degrees from the bridge rail to the main deck at the bow. The forward edge was 37 feet above water.