Jan Steglau

Latvian businesmen, aviation pioneer of the begining of 20th century, who made his wealth in Russia, St. Petersburg in metal industry. 

Avio science and industry pioneer in the Russia Empire (one of the first started to use metal fuselage for planes etc.) 

Returned to Latvia after Bolshevik revolution, but due economic crisis was not able to start business and further moved to South America. 

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Among the people attracted by these lectures was Steglau the millionaire, whom I have aheady mentioned. A simple peasant by origin, Mr. Steglau started life as a navvy on drainage construction. He performed his military service, of course, as a private, and after four years went back to his old work, becoming a ganger in a short time. Circumstances enabled him to start business for himself and in a few years he became one of the richest contractors in the Empire.

The possession of money made no difference in Mr. Steglau's character. Hei was a millionaire at forty, but he remained the same simple, good-tempered peasant. He began to study the theory of aviation. He designed plans for an aeroplane of his own, built it himself, fitted it with the best engine obtainable, and then flew in it himself. Mr. Steglau as a contractor had been famous for the solidity of his work and he astonished the aviation world in the spring of 1911 by denouncing the use of fabric for the wings of the aeroplane as being far too flimsy and urging that three-ply wood should be used instead. The experts were naturany unconvinced by suggestions coming from a theoretically uneducated man, but in the spring of 1912 Steglau appeared on the aerodrome of the Imperial All Russia Aero Club with his new tractor biplane entirely made of wood and fitted with a hundred horse-power engine. "Who is going to fly on this machine?" Mr. Steglau was asked. "I am," was the answer. "Have you ever done any flying before? " "Never," was the reply. Whereupon he climbed into the aeroplane, started the engine, and began to rise from the earth to the stupefaction of the onlookers. He rose to a height of 600 feet and flew above the aerodrome for nearly an hour. His landing was less successful than his rising. He smashed down a fence ten feet high, but his machine was practically undamaged. The ends of the wings were slightly broken, the propeller was smashed, and one of the cylinders of the engine was crumpled. That was all. The pilot himself climbed out of the seat with the same unconcern as might be shown by a coachman who has noticed that there is something wrong with one of the wheels of his carriage, although the shock of the landing had been so great that any ordinary aeroplane must have been smashed to pieces. He was surrounded at once with astonished enquirers. "There is nothing in the least wonderful in what I have done," said Mr. Steglau. "I have watched other men flying, and I saw how they did it. As soon as I got up into the air I began to think how I should land and" - looking at his machine and the broken fence - " it might have been worse." The Russian peasant takes a long time to make up his mind, but when he has once determined on a course of action nothing can stop him. In this, indeed, he is very like the Englishman. During the summer of the same year Mr. Steglau flew at the second Military Aviation Meeting, and his apparatus was soon regarded as the safest that had ever been constructed. He never flew without an accident. On one occasion he killed a cow. On another occasion he wrecked the top of a hangar, but whatever else happened neither the pilot nor the machine was eyer seriously damaged. The principal technical defect of his aeroplane was its lack of great lifting power. At the end of 1913, as I have related, Mr Steglau was obliged, by the pressure of his financial associates, to abandon flying, but he has continued his connection with the Imperial Russian Technical Society and has constantly been lavishly generous in the assistance he has given to struggling inventors.

B. Roustam Bek, Aerial Russia