Magyar News, 1993. szeptember-1994. augusztus (4. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)

1993-10-01 / 2. szám

ENDRESZ AND MAGYAR HUNGARIAN PILOTS FOR HUNGARIAN CAUSE

FLYING AHEAD OF TIME

There is a dream imbedded in the human mind, and that is to fly. I don’t mean to go to the Kennedy airport and board a plane to somewhere, nor to hop on a helicopter and zoom straight up, nor am I thinking of one of those back-packs that work like a rocket. I am talking about dreams like Ikarus had which was to fasten feathers on his body and take off on his own power. Or recently there was a young man who travelled quite a distance a few feet above the ground in a contraption powered by him pushing on a pedal. He was highly praised for his success and was promised further support to develop his man-powered airplane. Now could you imagine that the Hungarians would stay out of this kind of an effort? Well, no way. There was a Hungarian who built a man-powered flying contraption. The date for this was not 1983. It was in 1891 that the omithopter was patented. A new version was tested on August 30th in 1896 on the fields of Kolozsvár. It travelled a short distance but stayed up in the air. The inventor was a Hungarian professor by the name of Lajos Martin and the pilot was Gergely Bartha, the Fire-chief of Kolozsvár who was also an excellent bicycle racer. Martin was already working at that time on a bigger, motorized version. Unfortunately, the next year at the age of 70, Martin died. This was six years before the Wright Brothers’ plane took off for a few minutes.

Lajos Martin came from the vineyards of Buda. He was bom in 1827. He was studying engineering at the University of Pest till the Hungarian Revolution of 1848. This time Martin joined the army as an artillery officer. After the defeat he was demoted and made janitor at one of the military academies in Austria. He was quickly moved out of there when they found out that he, the janitor, was tutoring the cadets. He finally got back into the officer rank and became a professor at a military school Martin achieved a lot of accomplishments in stabilizing rockets and designing new types of propellers for water and wind. In 1859 he resigned from the military. From then on he wrote many scientific articles, became a member of the Hungarian Scientific Academy, and took up teaching in Kolozsvár. This is where he built his flying contraption, the Floating Wheels. It was a simple devise. A frame held a pair of the wheels at both ends, and hanging from it were two push-boards where the person stood alternating his weight and with this movement turned the wheels. The wheels had paddles on them that opened out for the down stroke and pulled in for the upstroke eliminating resistance.

The test and demonstration took place on August 30th, the birthday of Lajos Martin. This was a birthday that should not be forgotten neither by the Hungarians nor by the world.

(CMB)

A good cause always finds supporters. For a Hungarian, a Hungarian cause is a good one. This is why there were some among our people who, to call attention to our cause, did extremely outstanding personal demonstrations through their unique efforts. Once in front of the Rákóczi Hall, a motorcycle pulled up with three Hungarian riders who were traveling around the world. István Serényi walked from the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic Ocean. He crossed the United States with the words of “Freedom for Hungary” on him. Over fifty years ago, on July 15, 1931 György Endresz, a pilot, and Sándor Magyar, a navigator, flew a small plane across die Atlantic carrying the sign “Justice for Hungary.” This flight originated in America, by starting out from Harbor Grace. In line after Alcock, Brown and Lindbergh, the Hungarian flyers were the fifty-fourth to try their luck. Out of the fifty-four, only fourteen made it across the ocean and as few as six reached their destination.

Endresz and Magyar, with the fuel burdened plane, hardly cleared the top of the trees at the end of the runway, and it took

them seven hours to reach the height of six thousand feet. After twenty-six hours and twenty minutes, they successfully put down the small plane at Bicske, not far from Budapest. With this flight, György Endresz and Sándor Magyar broke two records. They claimed the shortest flight time for such a distance and they penetrated the deepest into Europe after a trans-Atlantic flight. Besides they were the first ones to fly without a compass, relying only on their radio contact and their masterful knowledge about the stars. With their outstanding effort, these two Hungarian flyers called the world’s attention to the injustice of Trianon that crippled Hungary and also showed that challenging Hungarians even in an overcrowded field are able to achieve success.

A few years ago two Canadian-Hungarians, László Krug and Szigmond Németh in the memory of Endresz and Magyar repeated the trans-Atlantic flight and flew the 3,625 miles non-stop. This time we missed the sign which could have read “Justice for Hungary” or “Freedom for Hungary.”

h.h.

HUNGARIAN ICARUS

Reprint from previous issue.

The legend talks about Icarus and his son Daedalus, both of them attached wings and dared the sun and the water to challenge them in their effort to fly. Well the Hungarians have their legend about flying, but this legend turned out to be true.

In the early years of the 1700’s the bishop of Nyitrá, in northern Hungary settled some monks in his territory. These monks strengthened their souls by giving up talking totally. Among them was a layman who seemed to be their physician and many other things as well. He was a craftsman of many trades, a gardener, a carpenter, an alchemist and the list could go on and on. His name was Ciprian. Since nobody said a bad word - or any word - about his comings and goings, Ciprian spent as much time with whatever he wanted to. So it happened that Ciprian spent several years building and improving a set of wings for himself. He included some levers and gears to make the gadget more efficient. One night, convinced that everything was OK, and maybe affected by the full moon, Friar Ciprian climbed up on the top of the stone wall which surrounded the Monastery, and leaned against the wind. He glided smoothly for a long time and landed safely on the top of the Crown-hill. It might be hard to believe it but there is a document signed by B ishop Mattyasovski. When the bishop was informed about the great event he didn't show much appreciation but got hold of Friar Ciprian and threw him out of the monastery without the wings. This time the Friar didn’t have a soft landing. And nobody knew what happened to him from then on.

What we know is that the bishop summoned the people of Szepesbéla to the marketplace, condemned the wings as the gadgets of the devil and with a very emotional outburst put the wings into the fire to perish. It was a rare treat for the town people, and they expressed their gratitude with screaming and yelling. Some probably asked for an encore.

Almost a hundred years later in 1794 in Dömösd another Hungarian showed up with wings. They were quite sophisticated according to the “Magyar Merkurius” - the newspaper of the time. The man took his wings to the meadow, and leaped from one haystack to the other keeping a very accurate rhythm. There was no need for a bishop in this case because people made fun of the man who in exchange broke the wings into bits and pieces.

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