Commander Samson arrives at South Sea after flying from Eastchurch. Mooring the hydroplane (photo)

On the 10th January 1910 Lieutenant Charles R Samson RN had succeeded in taking off from the stationary HMS Africa, off Sheerness, but a stationary warship is a particularly vulnerable warship and, additionally, one which will quickly become detached from the main fleet - so the Admiralty wished to perfect a system whereby an aircraft could take to the air from a vessel that was underway.   It was in Weymouth Bay, on 2nd May 1912, that this first took place - the vessel involved being HMS Hibernia, under the command of Captain Grafton which, like HMS Africa, was a 12" gun battleship of the King Edward VII class. When the warship was some three miles off the Portland Harbour breakwaters, and making towards them at some 5 knots, Lt Samson was launched over the warship's bows from a wooden platform on the foredeck and flew over the breakwaters and across Weymouth Bay to land at the conclusion of his flight at the eastern end of Lodmoor, adjacent to where the town's local racecourse was once located.