Flight Camaguey-Seville. It was a journey by plane on a solo flight from Cuba to Spain , crossing the Atlantic Ocean in 1936, the protagonist being the Hipano / Cuban pilot Lt. Antonio Menéndez Peláez . This crossing was in response to the one made by the Cuatro Vientos plane between Seville ( Spain ) and Camagüey ( Cuba ) in 1933 .
Summary
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- 1 Event
- 2 History
- 3 Accomplishment of the Feat
- 4 See
- 5 Sources
Event
At twenty past five p.m. of the day 14 of February of 1936 and in response to the Flight Sevilla-Camaguey , made two years earlier by Barberán and Collar , landed at the airfield Military Tablada pilot Hispanic / Cuban Antonio Menéndez Peláez , with the plane “Cuatro de Septiembre”, which had taken off on January 12 , 1936 from the Camagüey Aerodrome , Cuba, after having flown alone in stages.
History
Within the golden history of aviation , in particular Ibero-American aeronautics, the flight of the Cuatro Vientos , starring Barberán y Collar , on June 11 , 1933 is a well-known and widespread fact . However, a forgotten chapter is the response flight to the disappeared Knights of the Air, carried out by a Cuban in January 1936 . The hero of that feat was named Antonio Menéndez Peláez , he was heir to the cunning and perseverance of the aces of Spanish aviation , in fact, a native of AsturiasHe was born in Santa Eulalia de Riberas, Soto del Barco, Asturias, on December 4 , 1898 , but emigrated to Cuba at just 13 years of age. He was naturalized Cuban in 1927 , when he was a young fisherman in the bay of Cienfuegos . He received his baptism of the air flying over the Pearl of the South as a guest and passenger of an American pilot, which served as the main incentive to leave the seafaring life and link himself forever to the fascinating life of aviation. Enrolled in an aviation school in Chicago , graduated in 1931; Since then, he has traveled almost every corner of his beloved island, treasuring flight hours, which in aviation are synonymous with skill, experience and professional expertise.
Since the beginning of 1933, he feels ready to face the vicissitudes of a flight to Spain , but the greatest impulse will be the flight to Cuba and the subsequent disappearance of the Spanish pilots Barberán and Collar aboard the Cuatro Vientos.
In search of more experience, he was a pilot crew member of the young Cuban Aviation airline, and with no other possible alternative in search of his greatest dream, he decides to enter the nascent Constitutional Navy Aviation Corps, formed after the military coup of 4 September of 1933. This would be the necessary step to open the doors to the flight response, because after being appointed officer-pilot and after the repair of a battered abandoned plane, he requests authorization and support from the Marine Corps and this in turn, to aeronautical and governmental authorities.
Achievement of the feat
Airport Camaguey , Cuba , seven o’clock on Sunday December of January of 1936 , the lieutenant Aviation Navy Antonio Menéndez Peláez began a solo flight from this city to Seville , Spain , in memory of the pilots missing airmen Spanish Captain Mariano Barberán y Tros de Ilarduya and Lieutenant Enrique Collar Serra.
Menendez Peláez Route
The flight of the Cuatro Vientos has left a pleasant memory in the Cuban people and with a more realistic approach, Menéndez Peláez prepares a flight plan following a route that a Spanish pilot would carry out a year before, although this time in the opposite direction: he would cross the Atlantic South for its narrowest part, from the easternmost point of America to the westernmost point of Africa .
The aircraft chosen is a heavy, old Lockheed Sirius , low -wing, ground, open-cabin monoplane purchased second-hand, fitted with a 550-hp Pratt & Whitney “Wasp” engine, no radio equipment, and a cruising speed. of 290 km / h, to which some improvements are introduced such as: additional fuel tanks to increase its autonomy and variable pitch propeller, among others.
Lockheed-sirius plane
The flight plan includes six stages: Camaguey – La Guaira (Venezuela) -Belem do Pará ( Brazil ) -Natal (Brazil) – Bathurst ( Gambia ) – Cabo Juby- Seville (Spain), which are not completed satisfactorily due to a series of technical and bureaucratic incidents that delayed his arrival in Belem do Pará by nineteen days. He finally arrives in Natal on Wednesday , February 5, where he stays for three days waiting for better weather conditions to make the great jump that begins at 11:06 p.m. on Sunday , February 9., to land at Bathurst airfield at 2.50 in the afternoon the following day after having covered a distance of 3,160 km over the sea. On Wednesday February 12, it takes off from Bathurst to the Spanish military air base of Cabo Juby, located on a promontory in the southwest of Morocco , and from there, at 10.30 am on Friday the 14th, the stage that would culminate at the Tablada aerodrome, Seville at 5.28 in the afternoon ending a flight in which it travels more than 12, 606 km and in which it has used 33 days, 10 hours and 20 minutes, flying at an average speed of 185 km / h in a total flight time of 61 hours, making him the first Cuban aviator to fly solo from America toEurope .
