A year after learning to fly, aviator Eugene Ely performed an experiment for the US Navy: he took off from a temporary platform built over the bow of the USS Birmingham, anchored off Virginia’s coast, and became the first person to take off from a ship in a fixed-wing aircraft. Two months later, he performed the first shipboard landing, using the first tailhook system to land on the USS Pennsylvania in San Francisco Bay, California. He died less than a year later while doing what? Discuss
Source: The Free Dictionary