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Sunday, January 9, 2011

Antal Lanyi - Aviation Pioneer in Hungary

Hello ALL,

Can anyone help me to help Ilona Harris with more information on her grandfather. See below.

Regards Peter Dunn
pdunn@st.net.au

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Hi Peter

You may recall that I met you at the Chermside library and mentioned my grandfather, Antal (or sometimes Anton) Lanyi (von Lanczendorfer), who was an aviation pioneer in Hungary. He built his own aircraft and was the first person to fly across Lake Balaton in 1911, in a Bleriot monoplane. If you are interested a google search will bring up this information. We have information about him prior to the war and especially about his flight over Lake Balaton but I am particularly trying to find out as much as I can on my family history and what happened to him post 1919, as I have little passed down to me from my parents who are both decaeased and I have no relatives that I know of, that can help me further.

I have obtained my grandfather's files from the Vienna archives from his days in the Austro Hungarian Airforce and have information on both his military career and pioneering activities before the First World War, which were kindly provided by Mr. Gabor Fekecs - an Aviation Historian living in Hungary. Unfortunately, Gabor was unable to provide much info of a personal nature on my grandfather or his immediate family.
I have undertaken some research on the family and have dicovered the name of my grandmother (Ida Spielman) but little else. In particular, I have been unable to find anything of my grandfathers activities after the war, which is probably due to the fact that he (and many others) was exiled from Hungary in 1919 due to his support for the Red Army. The last infomation I have is that in 1919, he fled, with my grandmother and father (who was a baby at the time), to somewhere in present day Slovakia (possibly Detva) and was then said to have moved to Wiener Nieustat in Austria (where he had flown as test pilot during the War). It is alleged that he died in Wiener Nieustadt in about 1936; however, I have been unable to confirm this as much of the town and its records were destroyed in WW11.

I was wondering if you may know of anyone that may have any information or contacts that may be able to help me further.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Kind regards
Ilona Harris