How North Island and Glenn Curtiss invented Navy flying
In January 1911, Glenn Curtiss leased a flat sandy spit at the north end of Coronado Island in San Diego Bay. Curtiss — the Hammondsport, NY motorcycle racer turned aviation pioneer — established America's first naval flight school there. Lieutenant Theodore G. "Spuds" Ellyson became Naval Aviator #1, trained at Curtiss's school. From this same field on January 18, 1911, Eugene Ely flew a Curtiss pusher from the deck of USS Pennsylvania anchored in San Francisco Bay back to Selfridge Field — the first carrier landing in history. The Spanish Bight that had separated North Island from South Coronado was filled in during WWII; today they're one peninsula. After 1917 the Army (Rockwell Field) and Navy (NAS San Diego, later renamed North Island in 1955) shared the field; the Army left in 1937. Charles Lindbergh tested the Spirit of St. Louis from Rockwell Field in 1927 and departed for New York from this ramp on May 10, 1927. From 1924 to 1936, the Navy's first aircraft carrier — USS Langley (CV-1) — was homeported here. The 1963 House Armed Services Committee formally recognized North Island as the "Birthplace of Naval Aviation." Today three Nimitz-class supercarriers typically rotate through Carrier Row, visible from KSAN final approach. KNZY is military-only, but every pilot landing at KSAN gets the show: turn final and there are the carriers, off your right wing across the bay.