To Ascend from a Floating Base : Shipboard Aeronautics and Aviation, 1783 - 1914

More than a century before the flight - deck aircraft carrier came to rule the seas in World War II, navies were confronted with the possibility that aerial vehicles could serve the surface warship. This book describes how navies of the world responded to that challenge by attempts, many long relegated to historical obscurity, to use ships as " floating bases " for aerial craft. It relates when, where, by whom, and for what purpose the combination of aerial and water craft was theorized upon, experimented with, or operationally employed, from the introduction of the spherical hydrogen balloon to the eve of World War I, a period the author calls the " prehistory " of naval aviation.

( ... ) The story is told against the background of the general development of naval aviation and the growth of aircraft as weapons of war. The work concludes with an analysis of the strength and status of naval aviation at the start of the World War I and of the position it occupied in prewar naval thinking. ( ... )