Lt. Theodore G. Ellyson

Theodore Gordon Ellyson was born in Richmond, Virginia in 1885 and graduated from the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis in the class of 1905. A brilliant, fearless young naval officer with early service aboard battleships and submarines, Ellyson was chosen in December 1910 by the Navy Department to become the service’s very first flight student.

Reporting to Glenn Curtiss's experimental winter aviation encampment on North Island in January 1911, Ellyson immersed himself in aircraft mechanics, engine assembly, and hydroaeroplane handling along Spanish Bight. Working side-by-side with Curtiss in open cockpits exposed to wind and sea spray, Ellyson mastered open-water take-offs, emergency dead-stick landings, and aerial navigation. In April 1911, he was designated U.S. Naval Aviator No. 1.

Over the following decade, Ellyson pioneered the foundational tactics of naval flight. He conducted the world’s first successful compressed-air catapult launch of an aircraft from a floating barge in Annapolis, evaluated wireless aerial communications with warships, and helped establish Naval Air Station North Island and naval flight schools in Pensacola, Florida.

Commander Ellyson tragically lost his life in 1928 during a nighttime flight over Chesapeake Bay. His indomitable courage, technical precision, and trailblazing experiments over Coronado airspace founded the United States Naval Aviation service, inspiring generations of carrier aviators and astronauts.