A Feat that Made History

Following a year of preparations, Ivan Sarić of Subotica carried out on an aircraft he named Sarić br. 1 that he himself designed the first flights on a local racecourse in the second half of June in 1910. This was the first flight with an airplane on what is the territory of Serbia today. In this way, Ivan Sarić made history as the first aircraft designer and as the first air pilot. Although Subotica was at the time a town inside the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy borders, Ivan Sarić has approved for this event be put down in Serbian aviation history as the birth of aviation on the territory of what is Serbia today and thus be presented as the milestone for marking a major jubilee – one hundred years of aviation in Serbia.

By Mirjana Novaković, curator of the Aviation Museum in Belgrade
Photo by Courtesy of: Aviation Museum in Belgrade archives

Ivan Sarić was born in Subotica in 1876. He graduated from the Academy for Commercial Studies and lived out his life in his native city, spending most of his working life as an accountant in the town’s taxation department. At initial glance, he might appear quite an ordinary character with an unexciting life with a regular daily routine. However, this smallish man with a gentle face and dreamy brown eyes was an extraordinary person – one of the greats of his age.

Inspiration, ambition and passion... these were the traits adorning Serbia’s first airman. Most would find the path he had trodden hard to imagine. Possessed of great energy, multi-talented and endowed with high enthusiasm he met challenges coming his way head on, his feet firmly on the ground yet high up in the sky. He was into sports from early youth. He did track and field, wrestling, fencing and was one of the founders of a football club in Subotica as well as a fine cyclist and motorcyclist. At one point, he even made an automobile by himself using parts from old and wrecked cars.

Achieving some fame as an athlete, Sarić became interested in aviation. He obtained information on the subject from newspaper articles – from international news carrying stories about first flights of aviation pioneers. Quite by chance, aviation became for him an obsession and a great passion of his, a passion that was to hold its grip on him for many years.

By force of circumstance, he happened to be in the right place at the right time. In June 1909, one month before Louis Bleriot’s famous flight over the British Channel, Sarić was taking part in the Roads of France automobile race along with his friend Arthur Delfosse. At the friend’s suggestion, they went near Paris to the military drill field turned into an air strip. It was here that Sarić first saw an airplane. The first French pilots and early pioneers of aviation: Alberto Santos Dumont, Bleriot, Voisin... flew in their crafts as they skidded on the drill field before the astonished visitor from Vojvodina. He stood in awe of the incredible image unfolding before him and of which he up until that moment only heard and read about.

- The first time I saw them, I told myself: Ivan, this is the thing for you. You must make an airplane – he was quotes as saying and his words recorded later speaking of this event.

Photographing the aircraft was not permitted, but Sarić made use of a guard’s inattentive moment and holding the camera to his chest and shielding it with his jacket he took a photograph of Louis Bleriot’s airplane. Nothing he had experienced ever before could match the great excitement of that moment, and it was there on the spot he decided to try his hand at aviation, which so strongly drew him in. On that same night, upon returning to the hotel with a bagful of impressions, he set down to sketch the details he had noticed about the airplane’s design.

Sarić br. 1

Several days later in Subotica, he was firmly resolved to build an airplane. While still on the journey home, he had planned just how it would look like. His friend Delfosse, who under license made Anzani engines in Cologne, promised to have an engine for him should he succeed to see through this project.

At home, hidden from the public eye and possible malicious comments of his fellow townsmen, harboring a secret he had divulged only to his wife, he got down to making preparations. He worked out plans and examined what kind of material he would be needing for the task at hand. He then bought the material - planks and laths of fir wood - and in the nearby carpentry plant cut them to suit the dimensions he required. He did most of the sheet metal parts by himself and only ordered attachments from abroad ... Thus, in July 1909, he began the construction of the airplane he named Sarić br. 1. The idea began to take shape in the attic of the Sarić family house -- now on br. 24 Otona Župančića St. – along with the sounds of the saw and the hammer.

The airplane he was building was a monoplane with a wingspan of 8.5 meters. In addition to the insufficiently firm spar, the wing’s firmness was reinforced by steel chords made into two pyramids on the top and bottom of the fuselage. As he did not find appealing Bleriot’s way of control by slanting wing ends, Sarić found another solution and at the wing ends put ailerons, fixing them with hinges to wigs. The 7.5-meter-long body was actually a wooden grid held together with attachments and chords. The landing gear that he took after the Bleriot XI airplane ended with the wheels he removed from his heavy-duty bicycle and fitted into his new flying contraption. He outfitted the pilot’s cabin and installed into it a hand-operated throttle control lever and a wicked garden chair as pilot’s seat! As early as in October 1909, the propeller was completed and in early December the promised 25 hp Anzani had engine arrived. He put it together without delay and tested it.

At the beginning of 1910, the airplane was fully complete. The sole witnesses to his great success were the two carpenters and Irena, the vastly supportive wife of our first airman and his main helper.

In May 1910, he began building on the horse racecourse a shack to shelter the aircraft. He obtained a loan from a lumberyard and, assisted by the racecourse watchman, built a hangar shaped like the letter T. Then the first public appearance of the wonder machine ensued! At the insistence from his friends, Sarić in mid-June moved the aircraft to the hall of what was then Pešta Hotel – and later Subotica’s town theater – where it was exhibited for several days. That was the moment when the veil was fully removed from his secretive activities. A large number of Subotica residents rushed to the hotel hoping to be the first to witness the new wonder in their town. However, disbelief continued... the mystique of flying and fear of the unknown were weighing heavily still.

First Flights

Having disassembled the airplane, he moved it to the hangar at the racecourse using its own wheels - straight to the place from which it was to start off its first flight. The historic day approached. Finally, at the crack of dawn on a warm June day in 1910, the piercing sound of the engine was heard. He sat in his garden chair and first taxied a few times across the wide meadow, and then decided to take off. He made a running start, pulled the joystick towards him and lifted off - and at that very moment he became Serbia’s first pilot! In the coming days, he would go out to the racecourse and learn to pilot on his own, improving his piloting skills with each coming day. Once he became sure of himself, he ventured into making his first turn while airborne. However, at the decisive moment a wrong move took him in an unwanted direction and as the airplane veered it caught the tall poplar treetops at the edge of the meadow. Sarić did not make the best of the situation and the airplane crashed to the ground. Fortunately, small speed and altitude allowed the pilot to get off from this accident unhurt.

The same day he repaired the minor damage the airplane had sustained and continued his test flights. He would go to the racecourse early in the morning and make flights from one end of the meadow to the other, flying at an altitude of some twenty meters thus covering approximately 1,000 meters.

Reaching the meadow’s end, he would turn the airplane around and return to perform the landing operation by the hangar. In late July, he had another accident. While still in the air, the engine had stopped for lack of fuel and he crashed into a large pool, which partly softened the impact. Luck was on his side once again, and Sarić escaped unharmed. He was already quite aware that the engine was too weak for his aircraft. A lot of money was needed to get a more powerful engine – money he could not set aside from his modest accountant’s earnings. His friend Delfosse had promised him a stronger engine but as this engine was not arriving Sarić decided to build a new one on his own. He did the designs and was readying to embark on a new adventure.

Public Flight

Nevertheless, in the autumn of 1910 he did came by a new, stronger engine and was ready to demonstrate to the public his designing and piloting skills in the presence of his townsmen. He had agreed with members of the sport club to perform a flight for all the public to see! Already, in early October small posters appeared on the streets of Subotica announcing that the airman from Subotica, Ivan Sarić, was on October 16 to perform several flights on his monoplane. The show is to be held at the horse racecourse. Over 1,000 posters announced the first ever air show in the Balkans!

On that Sunday afternoon, the stands at the racecourse were packed. Like a river, the people kept flowing in to the venue expecting a sensation. Sarić, himself, later commented: - The entire town elite, headed by the top representatives of the military and civilian authorities, came out that day for the event. Budapest-based newspapers sent their special correspondents and even papers from Vienna... There were a great many people present… It was a big day for a Subotica, as well as for me.

An estimated 7,000 people gathered on that day around 3 p.m. at the racecourse. The stands were packed as was also the railroad causeway, the roof of the nearby factory... Take-off was awaited in just that kind of atmosphere; charged with expectations and with mixed feelings of happiness, fear, hope. Unfortunately, there was a strong wind blowing, but even so Sarić had no intention of failing and disappointing those who came to see him fly. An so, his airplane lifted off, accompanied by thunderous cheering!

He reached the altitude of 20 meters and circled around the racecourse. All those present fell into silence. When the flight was about to end and he was about to land the airplane, another misfortune befell him. A cylinder cracked and smoke from the engine dimmed his view. And again, as on the previous two occasions, luck was on his side. He managed to land safely, as the thrilled mass of people carried him to the stands where the mayor conferred on him a red ribbon as a token of recognition.

- The feeling that I have conquered air, that I am above the tallest house in Subotica, that in time I would reach even higher under the clouds... those the feelings are impossible to express. This is an once-in-a-lifetime experience..., Ivan Sarić would recount years later, remembering that day. With this feat, he had reached pinnacle of his perseverance and creativity, and at the same time, of his courage.

This constituted the end of one and the beginning of another episode. Sarić had a good mind resolutely to carry on, bent on achieving even more.

Dissatisfied with the limited possibilities of his Sarić br. 1 airplane and aware that he could do better, he made yet another move forward. During 1911, he directed his energies as designer towards ‘new wings’, an airplane that he named Sarić br. 2. He carried out test flights on his airplane in the course of 1911. The circumstances on the eve of World War I have disrupted his work on the airplane and engine. Ivan Sarić was mobilized and worked as construction supervisor in the airplane factory in Fišemed. He did attempt realization during the war 1917 of another one of his ideas. His ingenious mind this time came forth with a scale model helicopter into which he installed an engine that could take off from his hand!

When the war ended, he returned to Subotica. Realizing that the airplane has become a lethal weapon and that the age of innocence for aviation pioneers was on the wane, as did many like him, he withdrew from the heroic epoch of aviation. Conscious that time has outpaced him and that his flying days were over, he went back to motorcycling and car racing to which he remained faithful to the last days of his life. He last took part in a sport event in 1965 when he was presented with a cup – as the oldest participant of the First July 7 car rally.

The following year, as he turned ninety, he died after a brief illness in his house in Subotica’s 24 Otona Župančića St. This house has to this day preserved the spirit of the turn of the twentieth century.

Testimony of the life, character and work of Serbia’s first airman is kept at the Aviation Museum in Belgrade. As one enters the museum one’s eyes immediately fall on the first airplane that flew our skies – Sarić br. 1.

Footballer and Cyclist He came in touch with football during his stay in Vienna in the summer of 1899. Very enthusiastic about the then little known game, he brought a ball to Subotica and demonstrated for this townsmen the new sport. It was through his initiative that the Bačka FC, the first in Subotica and Vojvodina was founded. Sarić played left forward in the team and scored the first goal in the match against the best Hungarian team – Ferencvaros. This first victory he would remember throughout and he wrote and talked about it. As a well-known cyclist, he competed in and won many races throughout Europe. The first time he appeared in a race was in Pecs, Hungary, in September 1896. As a cyclist, he won more than fifty first, second and third places. He won in races held in Hungary, Austria, while in July 1900 he became Serbia’s cycling champion! That was when in Belgrade’s Topčider Park he won two first places - in the 1,000-meter and the 25-km race. At the time, Subotica’s footballers, headed by Ivan Sarić, played a demonstration game in Topčider. Some are wont to say that this was the first match played in Serbia under comprehensive football rules!