| GOLDEN
WINGS 1914 FETHİ BEY, the hero of
the project graduated from Naval School in 1907. To
further in his career field, he was at Great Britain in
Bristol Airplane Factory. After successfully compleating
his training, there he was promoted to Captain upon his
arrival. In Istanbul he performed airshows for certain
period of time.
Fethi
Bey and his assistant Sadık Bey started to prepare for
long journey, by the planeBLERIOT
XI/B called MUAVENET-İ MİLLİYE,
and Nuri Bey and his assistant İsmail Hakkı Bey DEPERDUSSIN type plane
named PRENS CELALETTİN. The destination was the same for
those two planes took of from Istanbul in 1913 with the
wish of everybodies good luck; it was to succeed a long
air journey passing over Eskişehir, Konya, Ulukışla,
Adana, Humus, Damascus and finaly Alexandria.
Having
extremely bad weather conditions forced them discontinue
their mission. Fethi and Sadık Bey had an excellent
flight up to Damascus. After that they proceeded with
some other arrival points. Unfortunatelly, their plane
crashed nearby Shimiriye, Taberiye. Both of them died in
that crash. Nuri Bey and his assistant Hakkı proceeded
with their flight plan. But this team also had a crush
and Nuri Bey died Ismail Hakkı survived.
The
death of three pilots who were performing the Journey of
Cairo, brought saddness to the whole country, where they
become subject to poets and culturel songs. For the
comemoration of the three pilots burried in Damascus,
there was also a monument erected at Fatih Park,
Istanbul.
After
this event, a third BLERIOT XI started for the same
journey from Çanakkale. But this one crashed around
Edremit Balıkesir. The mayor of Edremit Yazıcızade
İsmail Hakkı Bey leads the people of Edremit to collect
money to buy a fourth plane to complete the flight. The
fourth plane named "Edremit" compleates the
journey of Fethi Bey and his friends. BLERIOT XI was
brought to Beirut and the flight was completed
accordingly with the original flight plan.
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