The Açor in Flight | 90 years of aviation in Terceira Island

Capítulo Gallery, 3rd October 2020 to 31st January 2021
This exhibition marks the 90th anniversary of the flight made by Terceira aviator Frederico Coelho de Melo in the Avro 504K biplane, symbolically named ‘Açor’, on 4 October 1930, from the Achada airfield, which was the first step in Terceira’s aeronautical development.
This remarkable achievement inspired the population and fulfilled a desire widely expressed in the press at the time, which argued that the future lay in aviation. In this way, the island’s geostrategic importance, once the ‘universal stopover of the west sea’, in the words of Gaspar Frutuoso, was consolidated, and it came to be regarded as an essential aircraft carrier.