Miguel Lebrija

Miguel Lebrija Urtetegui (20 November 1887 — 15 December 1913) was a Mexican aviation pioneer. In 1909, built and flew his own glider. He was active in the service of the Mexican government during the Mexican Revolution, and his service would help to establish the Mexican Air Force.

Miguel Lebrija Urtetegui
Miguel Lebrija in front of his plane
Miguel Lebrija in front of his plane
Personal details
Born(1887-09-20)September 20, 1887
Mexico City
DiedDecember 15, 1913(1913-12-15) (aged 27)
Alma materColegio Williams
Occupationaviator
Military service
AllegianceMexico
Branch/serviceMexican Army (Escuadrilla Aérea de la Milicia Auxiliar del Ejército)
RankHonorary Major
Battles/warsBattle of Campo de Balbuena

Flying over Metropolitan Cathedral in Mexico City, he proved that planes can work at an altitude of 7,000 meters.

Career

The first of Miguel Lebrija's known experiments with aviation came in April 1908, when he used an automobile to tow a biplane, coaxing it into flight.[1] In 1910 Miguel Lebrija acquired the first plane in Mexico, a plane from Blériot Aéronautique owned by El Buen Tono, who were selling it because it could not fly. He fixed its engine and became the second person in Mexico to ever fly on 14 May 1910,[2] flying for five minutes. In doing so, he also proved that an airplane could fly at the altitude of Mexico City, which is approximately 7,500 meters.[3] He also acquired a Deperdussin.[4]

In February 1913 Lebrija was refused a bombing run over Mexico City from Victoriano Huerta.[2] Instead, he dropped test bombs at Llanos de Balbuena, the first airport in Mexico, on April 1913.[5] Lebrija was promoted to the rank of 'Honorary Major' in the air force, then the Army's Auxiliary Aerial Militia Squadron (Escuadrilla Aérea de la Milicia Auxiliar del Ejército), and was sent off to New York and later France to purchase 20 airplanes and two dirigibles for the fledgling air force.[2] Previously, similar missions had been denied to exist by Luis Perez Figueroa in July 1910.[3] Regardless, Lebrija died in December in Paris after a surgery.[4]

Lebrija was of the opinion that there would be thousands of Mexican airmen fighting in the Mexican air fleet in only a few years.

  • A monoplane flies over plains
    Miguel Lebrija taking flight in his Blériot, 24 July 1910

References
  1. Hagedorn, Dan (2008). Conquistadors of the Sky: A History of Aviation in Latin America. Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. ISBN 978-0-8130-3249-8.
  2. Flores, Santiago A. (19 September 2019). Mexicans at War: Mexican Military Aviation in the Second World War, 1941–1945. Casemate Publishers. ISBN 978-1-913118-39-6.
  3. Aeronautics (4-7 ed.). 1909.
  4. "Miguel Lebrija Urtetegui - América Vuela". www.vuela.com.mx (in Mexican Spanish). Retrieved 11 March 2023.
  5. Nacional, Secretaría de la Defensa. "La Aviación Militar en la Revolución Mexicana". gob.mx (in Spanish). Retrieved 11 March 2023.


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