Johan Hilgers

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Jan Hilgers (1910)

Johan Willem Emile Louis Hilgers (known as Jan Hilgers; born December 19, 1886 in Probolinggo , Indonesia , † July 21, 1945 near Ngawi , Indonesia) was a Dutch aviation pioneer.

In 1910 Hilgers was employed by the company Verwey and Lugard, an automobile company whose owners were very interested in aviation and who had therefore bought a Blériot XI . Their goal was to make the first flight by a Dutchman in their own country and Johan Hilgers was to become the pilot of this company. So Verwey and Lugard sent him to Louis Blériot's flight school in Pau to take flight lessons. When Verwey and Lugard learned that Clément van Maasdijk was preparing for a flight, they immediately ordered Hilgers back from France to the Netherlands.

On July 29, 1910, Johan Hilgers took off from Ede with the Blériot, making him the first Dutchman to ascend into Dutch airspace by plane, although he had only learned straight flight during the brief introduction to France and had not yet mastered turning.

With increasing experience, Hilgers unofficially trained further pilots as early as 1911 in Maatschappij voor Luchtvaart , a company that Verwey and Lugard founded in the same year, although he himself was only granted the official flight license on August 12, 1912 - Incidentally, the fourth pilot's license in the Netherlands.

For Maatschappij voor Luchtvaart, Johan Hilgers developed the “Verwey & Lugard” model, a Blériot XI that he modified.

Jan Hilgers 1911

After the company was dissolved at the end of 1911, Hilgers found employment as a test pilot at Fokker in Germany from 1912 . His job there was to demonstrate the Fokker models to potential customers abroad. So he demonstrated a machine in Russia and then traveled with two machines to the Dutch East Indies , later Indonesia , to attract customers there. Apparently it was not particularly successful, at least nothing is known about orders. However, a crash in the Dutch East Indies that Hilgers survived has become known.

Johan Hilgers did not return to the Netherlands afterwards. He married Anna Sophia Blijenburg in Bangi in September 1913, with whom he later had 6 children, and on May 30, 1914, he took up a job at the predecessor organization of the Militaire Luchtvaart- Koninklijk Nederlands Indische Leger (ML-KNIL), the Dutch East India Air Force , on.

During the war for the Dutch East Indies, Hilgers was captured by Japan and died on July 21, 1945 in a POW camp near Ngawi.

Memorial in memory of Hilgers' flight on July 29, 1910

In his honor, a monument - a 2.20 meter high concrete column - was erected in 1955, commemorating his first flight in the Netherlands. This was suggested by the Leonardo da Vinci student association at the Technical University of Delft (Faculty of Aerospace Technology) on its tenth anniversary. It was designed by LO Wenckebach . It bears the inscription: "In memory of the first powered flight by a Dutchman over the Netherlands by JWEL Hilgers on July 29, 1910".

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Jan Hilgers. Retrieved February 28, 2016 .
  2. ↑ a b c d history of Ede / community archive / people. (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on February 28, 2016 ; accessed on February 28, 2016 .
  3. ^ Ralph Cooper: Jan Hilgers 1886-1944 / 45. The Early Birds of Aviation, accessed February 28, 2016 .
  4. ^ Municipality of Ede: Register of monuments. (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on March 4, 2016 ; accessed on February 28, 2016 .
personal data
SURNAME Hilgers, Johan
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Hilgers, Johan Willem Emile Louis (full name); Hilgers, Jan
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Dutch aviation pioneer
DATE OF BIRTH December 19, 1886
PLACE OF BIRTH Probolinggo , Indonesia
DATE OF DEATH July 21, 1945
Place of death near Ngawi , Indonesia