This Day in Aviation History
October 17th, 1922
A Vought VE-7 Bluebird, piloted by Lt. Virgil Griffin, performs the inaugural takeoff from the USS Langley.

As the first American aircraft carrier, Langley was the scene of several seminal events in U. S. naval aviation. On 17 October 1922, Lt. Virgil C. Griffin piloted the first plane—a Vought VE-7—launched from her decks. Though this was not the first time an airplane had taken off from a ship, and though Langley was not the first ship with an installed flight deck, this one launching was of monumental importance to the modern U.S. Navy. The era of the aircraft carrier was born introducing into the navy what was to become the vanguard of its forces in the future. With Langley underway nine days later, Lieutenant Commander Godfrey de Courcelles Chevalier made the first landing in an Aeromarine 39B. On 18 November, Commander Whiting was the first aviator to be catapulted from a carrier’s deck…..

Source:
Wikipedia, USS Langley (CV-1): http://gstv.us/1jrkuQD

YouTube, The first takeoff and the first landing of airplanes on the U.S. Navy’s first Aircraft Carrier: http://gstv.us/1jrkz6X

Further Reading:
http://gstv.us/2xH8fe1

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Photo from: http://gstv.us/2xH8fe1

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