ELTA: Eerste Luchtvaart Tentoonstelling Amsterdam (First Aviation Exhibition Amsterdam1919) (LAST STOCK!)

Today we received the last stock of this book. It will not be reprinted

The end of the war meant for many people a new start. In 1919 civil aviation was starting up and in the Netherlands the Dutch were eager to start up as well. Already in February 1919 the Dutch first lieutenant Albert Plesman and his friend the first lieutenant Hofstee decided to try to set up an aviation exhibition that would make the Dutch population air-minded again. And so they started with the preparations and formed a committee with the name 'Vereeniging Eerste Luchtvaart Tentoonstelling Amsterdam' led by former general Snijders, who had numerous connections in both the military and the civil service. Via the Dutch embassy in London, Paris, Rome and Washington the governments and the industry were invited to come between 5 and 25 July 1919 to Amsterdam to show their civil products. The ELTA (as the exhibition was known) was to be an exhibition exclusively for civil products. The construction of the halls and the connected airfield started in April 1919. The delay in the delivery of the material forced the organisation committee to postpone the start of the ELTA until 1 August. At the end of July the first aircraft started to arrive and material was delivered.

The doors of the First Air Traffic Exhibition Amsterdam – ELTA were opened on 1 August 1919. It turned out to become one of finest and biggest gatherings after the Great War. Great Britain, France and Italy joined the Netherlands in an exhibition that would attract hundreds of thousand of spectators, over one hundred aircraft and some of the finest European pilots. All celebrities of the time were present: British pilots like Stanley Henry Cockerell, the 'Mad' Major Christopher Draper, Captain Sir John Alcock ('conqueror of the Atlantic Ocean'), Captain H J Saint and many others. From Italy came among others Tenente Francesco Brack Papa, Tenente Arturo Ferrarin and Mario Stoppani; from the Netherlands Anthony Fokker, Bernard de Waal and Eerste Luitenant Willem Versteegh; France sent also some its finest pilots like Alfred Fronval, the French ace of all aces Rene Fonck and Pierre Chanteloup.