Society
Aviation
The Wind Beneath One Hundred Wings
05.02.2010
Few months ago Slovenia celebrated 100 years of the country’s first ever flight, which saw the name of Edvard Rusjan being forever immortalised on the list of aviation pioneers.Slovenia regards Edvard Rusjan with that special awe and admiration that can only be reserved for someone of exceptional talent and courage, and whose abrupt and premature end turned his life into something of a legend. He is that central historic figure which on the all-time aviation pioneer list sits comfortably on the 12th spot of chronologically successful flight-attempts, just six years behind the world’s first ever flight carried out by the Wright brothers.
Soaring to the skies
It had been just four years since Edvard Rusjan, born Trieste in July 1886, through reading professional literature fell in love with the idea that man could fly and experience freedom never before imagined that the first ever Slovene flight occurred on 25 November 1909 in Male Rojce near Gorizia, then under the Austro-Hungarian Empire. A year before the Rusjan brothers had made their first plane out of bamboo sticks and cardboard, naming their invention Trapola de carta (Paper trick), yet it soon became evident that to tackle any kind of serious aviation they would have to step up their game. Two and a half months prior to the first ever flight Edvard Rusjan attended a meeting of aviation enthusiasts near Brescia in northern Italy where he purchased his first engine from a Frenchman Louis Bleriot, who had earlier that year crossed the English Channel, and set on a collision course to greatness.
Having just purchased a 25-horsepower engine Edvard Rusjan could now turn to some serious planning. The plane EDA I, which he built in collaboration with his elder brother Josip and their sister Luiga Gigia helped sow the linen for the wings, was a biplane measuring 12 meters in length and 8 meters across the wings. The first ever Slovene flight, just six years behind the world’s first flight by the Wright brothers and 12th overall, was well underway with EDA I on 25 November 1909, the date which would later become the first milestone in the history of Slovene aviation. And although Rusjan’s second flight just four days later was much longer and at a higher altitude, the significance of the first ever flight culminating in 60 meters in length and flying at the height of two meters will always be looked upon with that special type of veneration.
Unparallel genius
What sets the Rusjan brothers so remarkably apart from the rest of the immortal crème de la cream of flying lies not in the specifications or the duration of their flight, but rather in the fact that they themselves were simultaneously the designers, the constructors and the pilots. Making their achievements even more noteworthy is the fact that they did not have the host of patent protections at their disposal as the Wright brothers had, and they also were not backed by the financial resources of the Frenchmen Louis Bleriot. It simply was the love of flying that drove the two brothers beyond every conceivable obstacle.
Icarus
The life of one of Slovenia’s most daring sons came to an abrupt and premature halt on 9 April 1911 in Belgrade, Serbia. Rusjan was fatally injured in an aviation meeting after his plane had been struck by a massive gust of wind, forcing the plane to crash at the foothill of the Kalemegdan Fortress. Rusjan died on route to hospital and was later buried in Belgrade among other great figures of the Serbian history. His funeral was attended by 14,000 people, including a representative of the Serbian royal family.
The municipality of Nova Gorica decided to devote this year to remembrance of the first ever Slovene flight by organising various events and holding a special celebration event earlier this September during which a monument at the airport in Nova Gorica was erected in honour of the Rusjan brothers. Yet Rusjan’s name was not always revered in these parts. At the beginning of the 20th century Gorizia was considered an important cultural and economic part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, but the booming years were abruptly cut short by the outbreak of WWI. A 25-year period ensued in which Rusjan’s achievements were glossed over and this sentiment endured even long after the end of WWII. Today Edvard Rusjan has the Maribor airport and an asteroid discovered in 1999 named after him.