Ever since that morning in January, 1911, when Eugene Ely took off from a platform on the deck of the cruiser _Pennsylvania_, flew around, and landed back on the deck, farsighted naval leaders had dreamed of taking the airplane to sea with the fleet. World War I and the use of naval aviation in anti-submarine and patrol duties had stopped progress in experiments along this line. It was not until the end of the war that Navy men began to consider the idea of building a surface vessel capable of carrying airplanes to sea. It was soon recognized that such a ship must be devoted exclusively to the carrying and handling of airplanes. It must be literally an aircraft carrier. The idea of the carrier created several problems. Assuming that the pilots could land on the bobbing deck of a vessel, how were the planes to be stopped? Then there was the question of training flying boat pilots to handle landplanes. While some Navy pilots had obtained landplane experience overseas during the war, the majority had never been aloft in any type of machine other than a seaplane. Nevertheless, the entire idea appealed to our Navy men and the project was undertaken. The Army agreed to provide landplane training facilities for Navy pilots. Under the command of Lieutenant Commander G. DeC. Chavalier, U.S.N., the Navy pilots first mastered the technique of flying landplanes. They learned to land their planes in small areas marked out on the ground to represent the deck of a ship. Then a platform one hundred feet long and forty feet wide was constructed on a coal barge at the Washington Navy Yard for use in deck landings. The barge platform proved dangerous, since no arresting gear had yet been developed, and the training was continued at the Navy Yard in Philadelphia. Here a platform was erected on the ground and a number of arresting gear ideas were tested. Finally there was developed a simple and reliable arresting gear, an outgrowth of the original taut line and sandbag idea, used by Ely. In the meantime, the secretary of the Navy had authorized the conversion of the old collier, _Jupiter_, into an aircraft carrier. A platform, or flight deck, was built covering the entire top of the ship and the arresting gear was mounted on it at the stern. The ship’s smokestacks were set to one side of the deck so as not to interfere with the landings. The carrier, commissioned the _Langley_, in memory of the inventive professor, first steamed to sea in October, 1922. At a spot near Old Point Comfort, where eleven years before Ely had made his flight from the _Birmingham_, Commander V. C. Griffin soared up from the deck of the _Langley_. Out from Norfolk roared Commander Chavalier, to set his plane down in a perfect landing on the _Langley’s_ deck. The United States Navy had its first aircraft carrier. THE FIRST FLIGHT AROUND THE WORLD