Flight Training at the United States Naval Academy

By Andre J. Swygert

The United States Naval Academy was founded in 1845 in Annapolis, Maryland, after experience showed that the policy of training naval officers solely through shipboard experience was ineffective. The development of aircraft in the early 20th century was a technological change that impacted the academy. The efforts of naval aviation advocates, led by Capt. Washington I. Chambers, resulted in the Navy acquiring its first aircraft in 1911 and basing them near the US Naval Academy where sufficient land and material resources were available to support flight operations. Later, under Supt. Adm. Louis W. Nulton, aviation entered the curriculum as an element of fundamental naval education, taking a place among major subjects such as seamanship and gunnery. Classroom instruction and indoctrination flights provided all midshipmen with a familiarization in aviation as an important element in their development as naval officers before circumstances forced a shift of training to other facilities by 1962.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
• Release date: Nov 13, 2023
• ISBN: 9781439679739

Andre J. Swygert

Andre J. Swygert is a retired business development professional whose 40-plus-year career was primarily focused in the aerospace and defense industries. Previously, he was also a part-time aerospace historian and freelance author who completed a number of works concerning the Tuskegee Airmen along with articles on US military aircraft of the Cold War for several aviation history magazines. The images used in this book are primarily from the Library of Congress, National Archives, Naval History and Heritage Command, and the US Naval Academy Nimitz Library's Special Collections and Archives.

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INTRODUCTION

Although the US Navy had been exploring the use of airplanes in military applications starting in 1898, it was not until 1911 that the service acquired its first aircraft. The acquisition process started in October 1910, with the appointment of the Navy’s first Aviation Board, comprised of Capt. Washington I. Chambers, Lt. N.H. Wright, and naval constructor William McEntee. Due to efforts led by Captain Chambers, after winning a hard-fought battle for funding in May 1911, they convinced Acting Secretary of the Navy Beekman Winthrop to sign the requisition for the first aircraft of the new naval air arm. Three aircraft were ordered: one Wright Model B-1 landplane and two Curtiss A-1 seaplanes. The Wright airplane arrived first in several crates at the US Naval Academy (USNA) on September 6, 1911, as the school was officially declared to be the center of aviation operations. This machine was immediately assembled in the academy’s Dahlgren Hall under the supervision of 1903 graduate Lt. John Rodgers. Rodgers was the Navy’s second rated aviator, as he had recently completed training at the Wright brothers’ factory in Dayton, Ohio. By the next day, the machine was assembled, prompting Rodgers to make the first successful flight of a Navy airplane flown by a Navy aviator from Navy property. With help, Rodgers took off from the academy’s Farragut Field, buzzed the academy’s Seamanship Building, and landed after a flight of about 15 minutes. Once the aircraft was refueled, Rodgers flew from Annapolis to the National Mall in Washington, DC. Here, he reported to Captain Chambers, who was the de facto director of aviation for the Navy. As a result, Rodgers’s flights heralded the birth of naval aviation.

Rodgers was joined at the academy by alumni Lt. Theodore Ellyson (aviator No. 1) and Lt. John H. Towers (aviator No. 3), both of whom had trained on Curtiss aircraft—Ellyson at the Curtiss school in San Diego, California, then later he and Towers underwent further training at the company’s plant in Hammondsport, New York. After Ellyson and Towers completed testing of the two Curtiss machines, both aircraft were soon delivered to the academy as well. All three aircraft were then moved to a new installation that Captain Chambers had earlier overseen development of on Greenbury Point, across the Severn River from the main campus of the academy. It had wooden hangars for each of the three aircraft, space for landplane operations, and was close to the Chesapeake Bay shoreline to accommodate seaplane flying as well. Chambers established the Greenbury Point facility here for a number of reasons. The site was conveniently near the Engineering Experiment Station for potential support of the fledgling unit’s aircraft, particularly the engines. In addition, the relative proximity of the Washington (DC) Navy Yard was an item in favor of Greenbury Point, as development of floats for early seaplanes occurred there and contributed greatly to the utility of the first naval aircraft.

Although the Greenbury Point site and a second nearby location that the fledgling aviation unit moved to after its first year were active for only two years, they were the scene of several notable flights and experiments conducted as training for mission applications. With designation of the unit as an aviation camp, the facilities also served as a training ground in which the three original aviators became flight instructors to other officers, many of whom remained in aviation and compiled illustrious careers.

Training moved to Pensacola, Florida, in 1914 to take advantage of a climate suited for year-round operations, since during the aviation camp’s tenure in Annapolis they went to San Diego during the first winter and to Cuba during the second winter before returning each time to Annapolis. After 1914, aviation training at the academy was limited to small amounts of classroom instruction in aeronautical subjects until 1925, when a new program designed to provide midshipmen with an understanding of the uses, specialties, and potentials of naval aviation was established. The program’s goal was not to turn out rated pilots; rather, its mission was to provide midshipmen with subject matter and a limited number of flight hours to help those so inclined to determine their aptitude and interest in naval aviation and to provide midshipmen interested in other specialties with fundamentals to help them in future operations involving naval aviation. As a result, a training unit was formally established at the academy in 1929. In conjunction with supplemental aircraft from the fleet, the unit provided familiarization flights from temporary facilities on the Severn River until growth of the program and safety concerns made it clear that better facilities were needed.

An effort to secure land nearby for a combined landplane and seaplane air station proceeded for an extended period but was unsuccessful. Eventually, by using available government property, a fully equipped seaplane base was completed on the Severn River in 1941, near the original Greenbury Point camp. The new facility was ready just prior to the onset of the country’s involvement in World War II. The demands for personnel and materiel to carry out the war effort resulted in a drastic reduction in familiarization flights, as the midshipmen’s training was also reduced from four years to three during this period in order to get as many officers into the fleet as possible. In addition, the midshipmen were transported to other bases during the summers for a large proportion of their aviation training during this period, foreshadowing future program endeavors.

At the end of the war, activity at the seaplane facility rose dramatically due to the demonstrated importance of aviation in successful campaigns on both fronts in the conflict and a consequently large increase in midshipmen interested in aviation as a career. With the establishment of aviation as a separate department within the academy’s organization at this time came redesignation of the seaplane base in 1947 from Naval Air Activity to Naval Air Facility (NAF) Annapolis, a component of Naval Station Annapolis under the Severn River Naval Command. Naval Aircraft Factory N3N biplane trainers configured as seaplanes were assigned in 1946 as the primary aircraft utilized to resume familiarization flights. They were intended for temporary use while the Navy renewed efforts to obtain land for the development of a combined shore station and seaplane base. A number of amphibious multi-engine aircraft were also assigned to handle additional program needs as well as providing aviation-rated academy faculty members and naval postgraduate school students at the academy with ready access to aircraft to maintain flight proficiency.

Unfortunately, the postwar efforts to obtain space for a new air station were also unsuccessful. The N3Ns continued in service for familiarization training, but as the 1950s progressed, the effectiveness of the vintage seaplanes to provide realistic and inspiring indoctrination training was becoming increasingly questionable. In addition, maintenance costs were increasing due to the aircraft’s heavy use, age, and harsh operating environment. These factors and the inability to build a new air station were the primary reasons that led to the retirement of the N3Ns in 1959, making them the last biplanes in US military service. With the subsequent decision to move training to other installations and to shift proficiency flying to a naval air station co-located at nearby Andrews Air Force Base, the official closing of NAF Annapolis occurred on January 17, 1962.

Today, the area that formerly constituted Naval Station Annapolis, of which the former NAF Annapolis was a component, is now part of the Naval Support Activity Annapolis (NSAA), on acreage encompassing the original aviation camps and the later facility. The current mission of the NSAA is