's experiment flying the
Langley Aerodrome off a houseboat in 1903 failed with it plunging into the Potomac River. The houseboat was equipped however with a catapult for providing the aerodrome with airspeed. The earliest recorded instance of using a ship for airborne operations occurred in 1806, when
Lord Cochrane of the
Royal Navy launched kites from the 32-gun frigate in order to drop propaganda leaflets. The
proclamations against
Napoleon Bonaparte, written in French, were attached to kites, and the kite strings were set alight; when the strings had burned through, the leaflets landed on French soil.
Balloon carriers Over 40 years later, on 12 July 1849, the Austrian Navy ship was used for launching
incendiary balloons. A number of small
Montgolfiere hot air ballons were launched with the intention of dropping bombs on
Venice. Although the attempt largely failed due to contrary winds which drove the balloons back over the ship, one bomb did land on the city. Later, during the
American Civil War, about the time of the
Peninsula Campaign, gas-filled
balloons were used to perform reconnaissance on Confederate positions. The battles soon turned inland into the heavily forested areas of the Peninsula, however, where balloons could not travel. A coal barge, , was cleared of all deck rigging to accommodate the gas generators and apparatus of balloons. From the barge Professor
Thaddeus S. C. Lowe, Chief Aeronaut of the
Union Army Balloon Corps, made his first ascents over the
Potomac River and telegraphed claims of the success of the first aerial venture ever made from a water-borne vessel. Other barges were converted to assist with the other military balloons transported about the eastern waterways, but none of these Civil War craft ever took to the high seas. Balloons launched from ships led to the development of
balloon carriers, or balloon tenders, during
World War I, by the navies of the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, Russia, and Sweden. About ten such "balloon tenders" were built, their main objective being aerial observation posts. These ships were either decommissioned or converted to
seaplane tenders after the war.
Seaplane carriers (right, with hangar and crane), with one of her
Canard Voisin seaplanes taking off, during tactical exercises in June 1912 The invention of the
seaplane in March 1910, with the French
Fabre Hydravion, led to development of the earliest ship designed as an
aircraft carrier, albeit limited to aircraft equipped with floats, in December 1911 with the French Navy
Foudre, the first
seaplane carrier. Commissioned as a seaplane tender, and carrying seaplanes under hangars on the main deck, from where they were lowered onto the sea with a crane, she participated in tactical exercises in the Mediterranean in 1912.
Foudre was further modified in November 1913 with a 10-meter flat deck to launch her seaplanes. , temporarily converted as an experimental seaplane carrier in April–May 1913, was also one of the first seaplane carriers, and the first experimental seaplane carrier of the Royal Navy. She was originally laid down as a merchant ship, but was converted on the building stocks to be a seaplane carrier for a few trials in 1913, before being converted again to a cruiser, and back again to a seaplane carrier in 1914. She was sunk by a German submarine in October 1914. The first seaplane tender of the US Navy was the , converted to that role in December 1913. In September 1914, during
World War I, in the
Battle of Tsingtao, the
Imperial Japanese Navy seaplane carrier
Wakamiya conducted the world's first successful naval-launched air raids. It lowered four
Maurice Farman seaplanes into the water using its crane. These seaplanes later took off in order to bombard German forces, and were retrieved from the surface afterwards. On the Western front the first naval air raid occurred on 25 December 1914 when twelve seaplanes from , and (cross-channel steamers converted into seaplane carriers)
attacked the Zeppelin base at Cuxhaven. The attack was not a complete success, although a German warship was damaged; nevertheless the raid demonstrated in the European theatre the feasibility of attack by ship-borne aircraft and showed the strategic importance of this new weapon. The Russians also were quite innovative in their use of seaplane carriers in the
Black Sea theatre of World War I. Many
cruisers and
capital ships of the inter-war years often carried a catapult-launched seaplane for reconnaissance and spotting the
fall of shot. Such seaplanes were launched by a catapult and recovered by crane from the water after landing. They were successful even during World War II. There were many notable successes early in the war, such as 's float-equipped
Swordfish during the
Second Battle of Narvik in 1940, which spotted for the guns of the British warships, helping to sink seven German destroyers, and sank the with bombs. The Japanese
Nakajima A6M2-N "Rufe" floatplane, was derived from the Zero. ==Genesis of the flat-deck carrier==