Penny Arcade Features Mutoscope Movie Of The First Landing On A Ship

The Naval Air Museum in Pensacola, FL has opened a new exhibit that features a unique view of the first landing of an airplane on a ship.

The museum has replicated four Mutoscope players ... devices commonly used in the early 1900s to display "movies" using multiple still images activated by a hand crank.

The Pensacola News Journal reports that researchers found two photographs of aviator Eugene Burton Ely, who was the first person to land an airplane on a ship in 1911. Using those photos as a starting point, they built a minute-long Mutoscope movie about the history-making flight. Two other features were created using other photographs about the earliest days of flight.

The Penny Arcade opened last Thursday, according to the report. It also features reproduced advertising from the period, and features a replica of the USS Pennsylvania, the ship on which Ely landed back in 1911.

Museum historian Hill Goodspeed said that new exhibit will give visitors a small taste of the first days of Naval aviation.

(Image from file)

FMI: www.navalaviationmuseum.org