Hans Fleischer Dons (13 June 1882 – 28 October 1940) was a

Royal Norwegian Navy The Royal Norwegian Navy ( no, Sjøforsvaret, , Sea defence) is the branch of the Norwegian Armed Forces responsible for naval operations of Norway. , the Royal Norwegian Navy consists of approximately 3,700 personnel (9,450 in mobilized state, 3 ...

officer. He is most associated with the first manned flight in

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and t ...

Biography

Dons was born in

Øvre Eiker Øvre Eiker is a municipality in the traditional and electoral district Buskerud in Viken county, Norway. It is part of the traditional region of Eiker. The administrative centre of the municipality is the village of Hokksund. The old municipali ...

, Norway. He was the son of Johannes Albrecht Dons (1839-1921) and Johanne Marie Fleischer (1850-1943). He attended the

Royal Norwegian Naval Academy The Royal Norwegian Naval Academy (RNoNA, ''Sjøkrigsskolen'' in Norwegian) is located at Laksevåg in Bergen. It was formally established 27 October 1817 in Frederiksvern. The institution educates officers for the Royal Norwegian Navy. History ...

(1901-05) and Technische Hochschule Charlottenburg (1907-08). From 1909, he served in the

as second in command on board Norway's first submarine '' HNoMS Kobben''. He was a naval attache at the Norwegian Legacy in

Washington, D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...

(1917-19) and held the same position at

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

and

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

(1927-30). Dons was the head of the Naval submarine fleet and served in the Admiral Staff (1929-35). On 1 June 1912 Dons performed the first manned flight in Norway in a

monoplane A monoplane is a fixed-wing aircraft configuration with a single mainplane, in contrast to a biplane or other types of multiplanes, which have multiple planes. A monoplane has inherently the highest efficiency and lowest drag of any wing confi ...

named ''

Start Start can refer to multiple topics: *Takeoff, the phase of flight where an aircraft transitions from moving along the ground to flying through the air * Starting lineup in sports *Standing start, and rolling start, in an auto race Acronyms *St ...

''. The

fixed-wing aircraft A fixed-wing aircraft is a heavier-than-air flying machine, such as an airplane, which is capable of flight using wings that generate lift caused by the aircraft's forward airspeed and the shape of the wings. Fixed-wing aircraft are distinc ...

was designed by

Etrich Taube The Etrich ''Taube'', also known by the names of the various later manufacturers who built versions of the type, such as the Rumpler ''Taube'', was a pre-World War I monoplane aircraft. It was the first military aeroplane to be mass-produced in ...

and was made in

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

Edmund Rumpler Edmund Elias Rumpler (4 January 1872 – 7 September 1940) was an Austrian automobile and aircraft designer. Born in Vienna, then Austro-Hungarian Empire (now Austria),Wise 1974, p.1964 he worked mainly in Germany.Lyons 1988, p.73 An automo ...

. A few days later, 7 June, Dons flew from Borre over Horten, crossing

Oslofjord The Oslofjord (, ; en, Oslo Fjord) is an inlet in the south-east of Norway, stretching from an imaginary line between the and lighthouses and down to in the south to Oslo in the north. It is part of the Skagerrak strait, connecting the Nor ...

Moss Mosses are small, non-vascular flowerless plants in the taxonomic division Bryophyta (, ) '' sensu stricto''. Bryophyta (''sensu lato'', Schimp. 1879) may also refer to the parent group bryophytes, which comprise liverworts, mosses, and hor ...

and

Fredrikstad Fredrikstad (; previously ''Frederiksstad''; literally "Fredrik's Town") is a city and municipality in Viken county, Norway. The administrative centre of the municipality is the city of Fredrikstad. The city of Fredrikstad was founded in 15 ...

– covering a distance of 48 km in 35 minutes. In 1935 Dons published his book
Start: En norsk flyvehistorie fra 1912-13''
(Oslo: Cammermeyers, 1935). ''

'' is on display at the

Norwegian Armed Forces Aircraft Collection Norwegian Armed Forces Aircraft Collection (''Forsvarets flysamling Gardermoen'') is a military aviation museum located at Gardermoen, north of Oslo in Viken county, Norway. The founding of the Norwegian Aviation Historical Society in 1967, gave t ...

located at

Gardermoen Oslo Airport ( no, Oslo lufthavn; ), alternatively referred to as Oslo Gardermoen Airport or simply Gardermoen, is the international airport serving Oslo, Norway, the capital and most populous city in the country. A hub for Flyr, Norse Atlan ...

, north of

Oslo Oslo ( , , or ; sma, Oslove) is the capital and most populous city of Norway. It constitutes both a county and a municipality. The municipality of Oslo had a population of in 2022, while the city's greater urban area had a population of ...

Biography

See also

References

Related reading