Ferdinand Cornelius – Swedish Aviator Figure

Description

Heritage Skies

In 1922 the Swedish Red Cross, the state and the military agreed to attempt something Sweden had not tried before: reach the patient by air, across a northern landscape where the roads gave out and winter closed whatever was left of them. The aircraft was a Breguet hydroplane on pontoons, French-built, with a Renault engine that was never entirely persuaded to behave. The pilot was Sergeant Ferdinand Cornelius.

In February 1924 he flew from Boden towards the market at Jokkmokk, to show the new service to the people it was meant to serve. Twenty minutes in, the engine caught fire and the flames reached the wings. He brought the aircraft down on the Lule river. That the flight is remembered as a demonstration rather than as the day the whole idea died is down to how he flew those twenty minutes.

The first patient was carried that July. A century on, Swedish air ambulance work is unremarkable — and it began with a sergeant, an engine that kept failing, and twenty minutes over Norrbotten.

The figure

Cast in resin, available in three scales. Select your scale above — dimensions and price vary accordingly.

VSModels — Real History. Real People. Great Models.