LUIZ BERGMAN

 

LUIZ BERGMAN - 1918 Collection of Eduardo Sigaud, 11-8-05

 

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES via email from Eduardo Sigaud, 11-8-05 Hi,      I am a movie maker and have just finished a documentary called ASAS DE CURITIBA (Wings of Curitiba). Curitiba is the capital of the state of Parana, in the south of Brazil.      In 1918, Luiz Bergman, an aviator from Rio de Janeiro, joined the group of sergeants of the Força Policial do Paraná, (Police Force of Paraná). They iniciated a campaign to raise money to buy an airplane.      One year later they bought a Morane Borel biplane, but with only one restriction, Bergman must be the first to fly it. A Rio de Janeiro newspaper said the Borel was too dangerous to fly, so Bergman made a tour to prove the opposite. The route was from Curitiba to Ponta Grossa, Castro and Jaguariaiva, an almost 500 km journey. He and his observer, Lieut. João Busse, finished the tour in about a week. While in the cities, Bergman flew with VIP girls.The adventure was one of the first attempts to put Curitiba on the map of aviation in Brazil.      I have some photos of early Brazilian aviators, including a task force in WWI.      Congratulations for your work on his homepage. Regards, Eduardo Sigaud

ONLINE RESOURCES      If you search for "Luiz Bergman" using Google, you will find only two links. One is the page for Ernesto Darioli on this site. The other links to the original story on the JF Service website. It is in Portuguese, but a machine-translation is available directly from the Google entry or you can use my translation just below.

THE FIRST AIRPLANE IN JUIZ DE FORA Translated from the article which appeared on the Juiz de Fora, 150 anos page of the JF Service website.      Six years after the Mineiro Alberto Santos Dumont invented the airplane, and made his first flight in Paris, France, Juiz De Fora saw one of those incredible flying machines.for the first time. The year was 1912, when the Italian Ernesto Darioli came to the city to make a flight in a promotion of the periodical "O Pharol". The airplane arrived in Juiz De Fora loaded on the Central do Brasil train. Ernesto Darioli made his first attempt of flight from a field improvised in the Praça Antônio Carlos, (Antonio Carlos Square), which, at the time, was just a mass of weeds. Soon after taking off, Darioli had to make a forced landing in the córrego da Independência, (Independence ravine), which today is the Avenida Independência, (Independence Avenue). In the second attempt the pilot had total success, leaving of the bairro Manoel Honório, (Manoel Honório neighborhood). Finally, the Juizforanos had been able to see the overflight of an airplane in the city.      Only two years later, in 1914, Juiz De Fora saw a new airplane. This time, it was flown by the gaucho Luiz Bergman.       Excited by the invention of Santos Dumont, the Aeroclube de Juiz de Fora, (Flying club of Juiz De Fora), was established in 1938, and to date has already graduated hundreds of pilots To read the article in the original Portuguese and to visit the website of JF Service, simply click on: Ernesto Darioli

 

I have not been able to find the dates of his birth or his death.

Editor's Note: If you have any information on this Early Flier, please contact me. E-mail to Ralph Cooper   Back