Aeronaut (airline)

The 1922-built reinforced concrete - Hangar of Aeronaut on the lasnamäe airfield , about 1925. The picture shows the brand machines sablatnig p.iii and Junkers F 13 .

Aeronaut joint-stock company was the first airline in the Republic of Estonia. It existed from 1921 to 1928.

Company history

The Estonian entrepreneur Robert Artur Holst (1885-1943) and the aviation pioneer Jakob Tillo (1887-1926) founded the airline Aeronaut on March 22, 1921 . The share capital of the joint-stock company was 10,000  Estonian marks . The airlines Sablatnig and Dansk Luftexpress were also involved .

The inaugural flight of aeronaut found on 29 July 1921, a rented sablatnig p.iii instead. The mail flight went from Tallinn to the Finnish capital Helsinki .

At the end of July 1922, Aeronaut bought two LVG CV and a Sablating P III from the German Sablatnig Flugzeugbau GmbH for one million marks . In August and September of the same year, Sablatnig P III machines manufactured under license by the Tallinn company Dvigatel were completed. On August 31, 1922, Aeronaut started operating the regular Tallinn- Riga airline .

On February 9, 1923, Aeronaut began regular mail operations between Tallinn and Helsinki. In April 1923 Aeronaut bought two Junkers F 13 planes from Germany for the connection to Finland. Aeronaut had thus increased its aircraft fleet to a total of eleven machines.

In May 1924 Aeronaut took up a regular flight connection from Tallinn via Riga and Memel to Koenigsberg . The flight went daily and took seven hours and 15 minutes with stopovers.

On January 24, 1926, an Aeronaut plane crashed on its flight from Tallinn to Helsinki. The company's founder Jakob Tillo was on board, was seriously injured and died a week later. The Estonian pilot of the Junkers F 13 , Harald Stunden , and the four other passengers survived.

Aeronaut then ran into financial difficulties. On April 11, 1927, the company ceased flying. Five days later, all of the staff were fired. In April 1928 the company was liquidated.

It was not until 1939 that the Republic of Estonia received its own airline again with the airline Ago .

See also

• Former Airlines List (Europe)

Web links

• History of Aeronaut

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Wikibase entry on the January 24, 1926 crash in the Aviation Safety Network (English)