Some days the newspaper article undersells its own story. A tiny wire photo captioned "Peanut Seaplane for Submarine" turned out to be one of the stranger engineering experiments the Navy has ever run.
A Submarine That Carried Its Own Airplane
Peanut Seaplane for Submarine," wire photo of the S-1 launching its aircraft — Republican Northwestern, September 17 1926
The caption on this photo lays out the basic facts plainly: the newest addition to the navy's air forces is the peanut seaplane, so small that it is carried in a special tubular compartment on the submarine S-1. It weighs only 1,000 pounds and has a three-cylinder motor, and can be assembled and launched in less than nine minutes after the submarine comes to the surface.
Martin MS-1 seaplane being assembled on the deck of the S-1, 1923
The actual demonstration happened later than these photos ran. According to Navy history records, the first complete cycle, surfacing, assembling the plane, launching it, then retrieving it, disassembling it, and submerging again, took place on July 28, 1926, on the Thames River near New London, Connecticut.
Martin MS-1 seaplane mounted on the S-1's deck, 1923
Picture the actual sequence: a submarine surfaces, sailors pull a folded aircraft out of a watertight tube built into the hull, assemble it on the open deck, launch it off the water, and then, once it lands again, take the whole thing apart and pack it back inside before diving. All in a matter of minutes.
US Navy submarine USS S-1 (SS-105) with a Martin MS-1 scouting floatplane (BuNo A-6525) on her after deck, probably at Norfolk, Virginia (USA), on 24 October 1923.
This was years before aircraft carriers were standard Navy equipment. We’ve seen them experiment with launching seaplanes from carriers around this time, but a submarine? Truly incredible.
The idea being tested was whether a submarine could function as its own mobile air base, showing up somewhere completely unannounced and putting a plane in the sky without any surface ship in sight.
What happened to it?
The submarine-seaplane concept didn't survive long past that July 1926 demonstration. Six Martin MS-1s were built for the program, and all six were still on the Navy's books as of 1926, but after further trials that same year, every one of the experimental aircraft was scrapped. What isn't clearly documented is the specific reason the Navy pulled the plug, none of the naval history sources spell out a stated cause, whether it was cost, reliability, or a shift in strategic thinking.
What is well documented is the broader trend it fits into: within just a few years, the Navy's institutional bet for getting aircraft to sea shifted decisively toward conventional aircraft carriers, which made a fragile, one-plane submarine hangar system look more like an interesting dead end than a path forward.
The S-1 herself moved on too, serving as a submarine division flagship starting in 1927, aircraft experiments behind her.
See you tomorrow. – Chris
Sources
Republican Northwestern, September 17, 1926
Naval History and Heritage Command, USS S-1 (SS-105) history