Monument to Jan Kašpar`s First Take-Off

The monument in the Dukla apartment blocks in Pardubice commemorates the first take-off of the Czech aviator and designer Jan Kašpar. It was in these very places that on 16 April 1910 he managed to get off the ground and take to the air in his Blériot aircraft for the first time.

In the place of today`s Dukla apartment blocks in Pardubice, at the beginning of the 20th century, there were wide meadows, which the aviator and designer Jan Kašpar chose for his attempts to make the first Czech flight by aircraft. In a nearby hangar and workshop he designed his own aircraft engine in 1910 and fitted it to a Blériot aircraft. On April 16, 1910, he made his first successful flight in this area, where the walls of the apartment buildings now stand, and covered a distance of 2 kilometres at an average altitude of 25 metres. More flights and bolder flights followed, and the area of today`s apartment blocks became de facto the first airport in the country. From there he started long-distance flights outside Pardubice. The monument was originally erected a few hundred metres to the south at today`s Pražská Street, where it was unveiled by members of the Pardubice aero club and the town`s cream of society in 1928. In 1966 it was moved to a more prominent location on the newly created Dukla Heroes square in the middle of the Dukla apartment buildings.

SVITÁK, P. První český letec, inženýr Jan Kašpar, a začátky českého letectví: příběh našeho prvního letce, jeho předchůdců, spolupracovníků a současníků s přihlédnutím k vývoji letectví ve světě. Pardubice: Východočeské muzeum v Pardubicích, 2003

 

DITRYCH, B. První a sám: neobyčejný život a zbytečná smrt aviatika Jana Kašpara. V Praze: Knižní klub, 2001

(Author: PH)

(Author: PH)