Everything about Roland Garros Aviator totally explained
Roland Garros (
October 6 1888 –
October 5 1918) was an early
French aviator and a
fighter aircraft pilot during
World War I.
Biography
Garros was born in
Saint-Denis, Réunion. He started his aviation career in 1909 flying
Santos-Dumont's Demoiselle monoplane, an aircraft that only flew well with a small lightweight pilot. In 1911 Garros graduated to flying
Bleriot monoplanes and entered a number of European air races with this type of machine.
He was already a noted aviator before World War I; by
1913 he'd switched to flying
Morane-Saulnier monoplanes, a vast improvement over the Bleriot, and gained fame for making the first nonstop flight across the
Mediterranean Sea from
Fréjus in south of
France to
Bizerte in
Tunisia. The next year he joined the French army at the outbreak of the conflict. After several aerial missions he decided that shooting and flying at the same time was too difficult, so he fitted a
machine gun to the front of his plane so the tasks became one and the same. In order to protect the propeller from the bullets, he fitted metal wedges to the prop. Starting from
April 1 1915, he soon shot down three
German planes and quickly gained an excellent reputation.
On
April 18, 1915, his fuel line clogged and he glided to a landing on the German side of the lines. After examining Garros's plane, aircraft engineers designed an improved system known as the
interrupter gear. Soon the tables were reversed against the Allies due to Fokker's planes shooting down nearly every enemy plane they met, leading to what became known as the
Fokker Scourge.
Garros managed to escape from
prisoner-of-war camp in Germany in February
1918 and joined the French army again. On
October 5, 1918, he was shot down again and killed near
Vouziers,
Ardennes, a month shy of the end of the war.
Garros is erroneously called the world's first
fighter ace. In fact, he shot down three aircraft, and the honor of the first ace went to another French airman,
Adolphe Pegoud.
Places named after Roland Garros
In the
1920s, a
tennis centre was named after the pilot,
Stade de Roland Garros. The stadium accommodates the
French Open, one of tennis'
Grand Slam tournaments. Consequently, the tournament is officially called Roland Garros.
The international airport of La
Réunion,
Roland Garros Airport, is also named after him.
Peugeot Car Manufacturers (French) commissioned a 'Roland Garros' limited edition version of its 205 model in celebration of the Tennis Tournament that bears his name. The model included special paint and leather interior. Due to the success of this special edition, Peugeot later created Roland Garros editions of its 106, 206, 306 and 806 models.
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