site.btaAugust 13, 1912: Simeon Petrov Performs First Airplane Flight over Bulgaria

On August 13, 1912, Lieutenant Simeon Petrov performed the fight airplane flight over Bulgaria. Petrov flew an Bleriot XXI airplane. 

Petrov was among three Bulgarians who trained at Louis Bleriot's school in France. 

Petrov was born on September 1, 1888 in Ruse, on the Danube, according to a profile of the aviator in the website of the Defence Ministry Information Centre. He graduated with honors from the junior high school and the military high school in his hometown, after which he was admitted to the Military School in Sofia. On August 15, 1907, he graduated from the Military School as the first class of 27 and received his first officer's rank of artillery second lieutenant. Not long after that he left the artillery to become an aviator. During his flying training in France, Petrov and Louis Bleriot himself performed the world's first ever night flight. Petrov was also the first in the world to land successfully an airplane after its engine failed at an altitude of 1,400 m. 

Before leaving back to Bulgaria, the three Bulgarian aviators received and flew the first Bulgarian-owned Bleriot plane, says the Defence Ministry Information Centre. Then they personally dismantled it and transported it to the nearest station, where it was dispatched for Bulgaria. The three pilots returned to Bulgaria on July 29, 1912. On 7 August, an aircraft mechanic arrived in Sofia together with the Bleriot. Together, they had the difficult task of setting up the first Bulgarian airfield near Sofia. There is no time to waste.

Only six days after the arrival of the plane, the first flight was performed from the new airport. On August 13, 1912, Lieutenant Simeon Petrov became the first Bulgarian pilot to fly a Bulgarian plane in the skies of Bulgaria.

The rest of Petrov's life could fill several men's lives.

He fought in the First Balkan War of 1912 and 1913.

He was involved in designing an aviation bomb with an aerodynamic shape and a stabilizer, according to the Large Encyclopaedia of Bulgaria of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. 

He became principal of the first Bulgarian aviation school in Sofia and was also the first instructor of Bulgarian pilots.

He founded and ran the Bulgarian state airplane workshop in Bozhurishte, near Sofia.

Later in life, he started a bicycle importing business.

As a side business, he also imported music records, which later developed into a record production company (Simonavia, 1934). He produced some 2,400 records with Bulgarian traditional songs and dance music. In 1947, his company was nationalized and renamed Balkanton. Balkanton was a monopolist on the Bulgarian market throughout the period of socialism, until 1989, and was privatized in 1999. 

Simeon Petrov died in 1951.