Eugen Čihák´s Airplane: RAPID, 1912
Eugen Čihák was born on 31 May 1885 in Croatia, where his father was employed. In 1889 his family moved to Pardubice, where E. Čihák graduated from business school.
After that he worked at the Laurin & Klement factory in Mladá Boleslav. In that year Čihák and his cousin Jan Kašpar, the first Czech aviator, began work on the development and production of their first airplane. Success came on 16 April 1910, when Jan Kašpar completed a short flight at the Pardubice military training ground. In June of that year the test flight was repeated in front of 22 thousand spectators. In 1913 Jan Kašpar left his aviation career because of the lack of an international aviation diploma and a functioning machine and Eugen Čihák was thus thrust to the forefront of the media attention at that time. Čihák made his first flight on 16 July 1911, but due to technical problems had to land prematurely. It is reported that during 1911 – 1914, Čihák completed 33 flights. On 7 May 1913 Čihák earned an international pilot diploma with the Austrian serial number 51. However, his aviation career was not renewed after the first World War. Together with his brother ran a truck transport company and he also worked as an aircraft mechanic and later as the manager of the airport in Kbely a Ruzyně.
In his lifetime Eugen Čihák constructed 16 aircraft. His most successful model was the Rapid at the end of 1912, which reached the at that time remarkable speed of 130 km/h.
Source: Czech Post
Released March 20, 2014
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