Roland Garros (aviator)
| Roland Garros | |
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Roland Garros in Tunisia on 23 September 1913 immediately after becoming the first person to cross the Mediterranean Sea by air.
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| Birth name | Eugène Adrien Roland Georges Garros |
| Born |
6 October 1888 Saint-Denis, Réunion, France |
| Died | 5 October 1918 (aged 29) Vouziers, Ardennes, France |
| Allegiance |
 France
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| Awards | Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur (1913) Officier de la Légion d'honneur (1918) |
Eugène Adrien Roland Georges Garros (French pronunciation: [ʁɔlɑ̃ ɡaʁɔs]; 6 October 1888 – 5 October 1918) was an early French aviator and a fighter pilot during World War I.
Eugène Adrien Roland Georges Garros was born in Saint-Denis, Réunion, and studied at the Lycée Janson de Sailly and HEC Paris. He started his aviation career in 1909 flying a Demoiselle (Dragonfly) monoplane, an aircraft that only flew well with a small lightweight pilot. He gained Ae.C.F. licence no. 147 in July 1910. In 1911 Garros graduated to flying Blériot monoplanes and entered a number of European air races with this type of machine, including the 1911 Paris to Madrid air race and the Circuit of Europe (Paris-London-Paris), in which he came second.
On September 4, 1911, he set an altitude record of 3,950 m (12,960 ft). The following year, on September 6, 1912, after Austrian aviator Philipp von Blaschke had flown to 4,360 m (14,300 ft), he regained the height record by flying to 5,610 m (18,410 ft).
By 1913 he had switched to flying the faster Morane-Saulnier monoplanes, and gained fame for making the first non-stop flight across the Mediterranean Sea from Fréjus in the south of France to Bizerte in Tunisiain a Morane-Saulnier G. The following year, Garros joined the French army at the outbreak of World War I.
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