Vecihi Hürkuş

Vecihi Hürkuş (6 January 1896 – 16 July 1969) was a Turkish fighter pilot, aviation engineer and aviation pioneer. He built Turkey's first aircraft, the Vecihi K-VI, and founded the first civil flight school of the nation.

Born in Istanbul, Hürkuş graduated from the Tophane Art School and later joined the Ottoman Army in the Balkan Wars in 1912. Upon his return from the wars, he became the commander of a prisoner-of-war camp in Beykoz. In 1914, he was sent to Baghdad as a mechanic in the Mesopotamia campaign. He was sent back to Istanbul in 1916 after suffering minor injuries in a crash. He was trained to become a pilot and, together with captain Şükrü Koçak, became one of the first two Turkish pilots to shoot down another plane. He was taken prisoner by Russian forces in 1917 after making an emergency landing and was confined in a camp in Nargin, from which he escaped in 1918. During the Turkish War of Independence, he was a pilot involved in bombing Greek forces and a minor friendly fire incident.

After the war, Hürkuş started to work on building his own aircraft, which would become Turkey's first aircraft. He was given a jail sentence for flying the plane without a permit. Although the sentence was later suspended, it caused him to leave the air force to join the Turkish Aircraft Society (TTaC), where he handed out leaflets of the TTaC after demonstration flights. In 1930, Hürkuş built his second aircraft, the Vecihi K-XIV, and had it transported to Czechoslovakia to get it certified. He used the plane to fly domestically to introduce aviation, hold conferences and collect donations for the TTaC, which he later left after his assistant was fired.

He founded his own flight school in 1932 and trained several students, including Bedriye Tahir Gökmen. The school was shut down in 1934 by the ''Müdafaa-i Milliye Vekâleti''. On 27 February 1939, he received a diploma in aircraft engineering from the Weimar Engineering School in Germany. In the 1940s, Hürkuş started writing books and publishing a magazine. He founded an airline in 1954, which was later banned from flying. He died on 16 July 1969 in Ankara and was buried at the Cebeci Asri Cemetery. Hürkuş was the recipient of three commendations from the Grand National Assembly of Turkey and the Medal of Independence. Hürkuş and Hürjet are named after him.

Early and personal life

Vecihi Hürkuş was born on 6 January 1896 in , Arnavutköy, Istanbul, to customs officer Faham Bey and Zeliya Nihir Hanım. His father died when he was three years old. He went to the Üsküdar Paşakapısı primary school, followed by the Tophane Art School due to his interest in the subject. During the Turkish War of Independence, Hürkuş married Hadiye Hanım, the daughter of the chief of police in Akşehir. They had two daughters. He later married his childhood love İhsan Hanım, with whom he had another daughter. In 1950, he married Hadiye again. Before the Surname Law, Hürkuş was called "Vecihi Feham" due to the name of his father, though he signed his planes as "Vecihi Kartal" throughout the 1930s. After the Surname Law, he first changed his surname to "Türküş", before altering it to Hürkuş in 1949.

His niece, Eribe Hürkuş, was one of Turkey's first female aviators. She was killed while parachuting during the Republic Day celebrations on 29 October 1936. She was the first female aviation martyr of Turkey.

Military career

Balkan Wars and World War I

In 1912, he joined his uncle, Colonel Kemal Bey, as a volunteer in the Balkan Wars, and was sent to Edirne. After the war, he was assigned as the commander of a camp holding prisoners-of-war in Beykoz. He was affected by pilots who died after going to Egypt and initially made model planes. Hürkuş wanted to become a pilot himself, but he was considered to be too young. Instead, he went to an airplane mechanic school, where he learned about airplanes for the first time.

In 1914, after World War I started, Hürkuş was sent to Baghdad during the Mesopotamia campaign as a mechanic. On 12 February 1916, he made a reconnaissance flight near modern-day Palestine with another pilot, senior lieutenant Mehmet Ali. During the flight, their plane stalled and crashed. Mehmet Ali had to have a leg amputated, while Hürkuş was left in critical condition and was sent to Istanbul. After his treatment, Hürkuş attended an aviation school in Yeşilköy and became a pilot himself. He joined 7th Airplane Company (Tayyare Bölüğü) in December 1916 as a non-commissioned officer. He and captain Şükrü Koçak are credited with shooting down a Russian aircraft in combat on 26 September 1917, which is considered the first in Turkish aviation history.

During the Caucasus campaign, Hürkuş was wounded in a dogfight on 8 October 1917 after making a tactical mistake by not using his altitude advantage over his opponent, causing him to make an emergency landing in Erzurum. Realizing that he was going to be taken as a prisoner by Russians, he burned his plane to not hand it over. He was taken to and held captive at a prisoner-of-war camp in Nargin, but later escaped with the help of Azerbaijanis, and returned to Istanbul on 13 May 1918 via Iran. He joined the 9th Airplane Company, tasked with defending the airspace of Istanbul, after his return. He was discharged from the military following the end of the war.

Turkish War of Independence

During the Turkish War of Independence, Hürkuş flew and maintained several aircraft. In June 1920, he and a few aviator friends stole a plane from occupied Istanbul to join the Kuva-yi Milliye in Anatolia. This was unsuccessful after the plane crashed due to being overweight. He joined the aircraft station in Konya as a pilot, and he made reconnaissance and assault flights from there in support of the Turkish Army.

On 20 August 1920, he made a reconnaissance flight together with another aircraft near Simav. They were returning to the base after flying low over a valley, when Hürkuş spotted a military camp near Kelemyenice, and decided to drop a bomb as the tents of the camp were coloured gray. The camp was of Kuva-yi Seyyare, a part of the Turkish forces, who sent a telegraph less than an hour after Hürkuş landed at Uşak