St. Petersburg Aviation Week
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- Saint Petersburg, Russia, May 8-15, 1910
Brunn (2007-present) reports:
- The aviation week of May 1910 was organized by a specially formed Aviation Committee under the auspices of the Imperial All-Russian Aero Club. The venue selected was the Kolomyazhsky racecourse, which was situated north of the city centre. It had been used for flying since 1908, and in November of 1909 the French automobile racer and pilot Albert Guyot displayed his Blériot there.
Six pilots were invited. (Not clear if anyone else flew.) The six were:
- Joseph Christiaens (Belgium), flying a Farman
- "Edmond" (Edmond Morelle) (France), Farman
- "Raymonde de Laroche" (France), Voisin
- Léon Morane (France), Blériot
- Nicolas Popoff (Russia), Wright
- Eugen Wiencziers (Germany), Antoinette
- Christiaens, Popoff and Edmond had all participated successfully in the Cannes meeting one month earlier. "Baroness" de Laroche had participated in the Heliopolis and Tours meetings ...
- Morane was to become a famous pilot and constructor, but he had only been granted his licence the month before and this was his first meeting.
- Wiencziers .. had made a spectacular flight over Strasbourg, circling the cathedral [shortly before this meeting].
- In the weeks before the meeting there were some preliminary events. The first flights were made already on the evening of April 25th, when Nicolas Popoff flew several laps. He flew also on the 27th and the 28th, particularly on the first day in sunny weather and in front of big crowds. On May 4th Hubert Latham, who was contracted to appear at the clashing Lyon meeting, displayed his Antoinette, but without much success. A huge crowd had gathered, but Latham only managed to get into the air at the fourth effort. After flying for around a minute one of the wings hit an earth mound left after track maintenance work, causing the machine to crash to the ground. The damages made further flights impossible
- [In the end it] cost 106,000 roubles to organize the meeting and the income from ticket sales was 120,000.
Bruun gives many further details and photographs.
Source
- Anders Bruun, St. Petersburg Aviation Week / Санкт-Петербургская Авиационная Неделя, The First Air Races web site, http://www.thefirstairraces.net, 2007-present
| Event names | St. Petersburg Aviation Week |
|---|---|
| Event type | exhibition |
| Country | RU |
| Locations | St. Petersburg |
| Start date | 1910/05/08 |
| Number of days | 8 |
| Tech focus | |
| Participants |
