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Oliver Andre Rosto – A Life Dedicated to Aviation

The Norse-American aviator Oliver Andre Rosto (1881-1972) was the first Norwegian to design, construct and fly a monoplane. The first flight of this monoplane (later christened “Duluth No 1″) was on February 26, 1913 from the ice of Lake Superior at Duluth, Minnesota, USA. After this flight Oliver Andre Rosto was mainly active in the world aviation and worked as inspector for the Curtiss Aeroplane & Engine Factory in the USA, for Ericson Aircraft Ltd. in Baltimore and from 1928 to 1952 for the Civil Aeronautic Authority. At the age of 71 he started to work for Transocean Air Lines...

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‘And the ship flies beautifully’

[caption id="attachment_3832" align="aligncenter" width="651"] Arrival of Kingsford-Smith and his crew after the flight from Hasbrouck Heights to Washington-Bolling. (via Gert Blüm)[/caption] In 1928, Charles Edward Kingsford Smith and his crew made the first trans-Pacific flight from the United States of America to Australia. Later, he made the first non-stop crossing of the Australian mainland, the first flight between Australia and New Zealand, and the first eastward Pacific crossing from Australia to the United States. Finally, he made a flight from Australia to London in 10.5 days. All these flights were made by the Fokker F.VIIb-3m, named Southern Cross. His aircraft...

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Fill ‘r up!

Today just a small, but nice photograph of the Fokker F-32 N334N (c/n 1204) We have received this fantastic photograph, which was placed in the 'Melbourne Herald' of July 21, 1930 with the following text: "Fuel, Oil, pressure greasing, water, anti-freese compressed air, towing, beacon and flood light service for airplanes on American landing fields, now is furnished by a fleet of Dodge Brothers’ two-ton trucks operated by the Shell Petroleum Co. Three of the trucks are shown here with the latest giant 32-passengers Fokker transport plane”. What a great plane and what great trucks. [caption id="attachment_3766" align="aligncenter" width="1141"] Fokker...

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John Bochkon – A true Norwegian hero

  [caption id="attachment_3630" align="aligncenter" width="229"] Photograph of John Bochkon. (via Hans Olav Løkken)[/caption] Sometimes you have to go through your papers and clean up and throw away some stuff. This time, I found a nice article by the hand of Hans Olav Løkken about an attempt to cross the North Atlantic, which ended with the death of Clyde Allan Lee and John Bochkon. The reason to mention this attempt is that the John was Norwegian and had a flying certificate issued by Orville Wright. He was born in Trondheim (Norway) on 8 March 1904. Due to sickness, he did not...

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