Name George Puflea | ||
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George Puflea Craciun was an early aviator. Born in modern-day Romania, he flew in the First Balkan War, in the Mexican Revolution, in the First World War and in early American and Mexican civil aviation. He was also known under his name in Spanish, Jorge Puflea.
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Biography
Puflea was born in 1883 in Mediaș, in the Austro-Hungarian Nagy-Küküllő County (in present-day Romania). He became an aviator in France, and took part in the First Balkan War. With Francisco Santarini he traveled to New York City, United States, where he obtained the aviator license number 256 from the Aero Club of America in 1913 at the Moisant Aviation School in Long Island, New York, where he also worked as chief pilot and instructor.
In 1914 he traveled to Mexico invited by Alberto Salinas Carranza, and joined the Constitutionalist Army, fighting in the Puebla campaign and in the Battle of El Ebano, where he carried out observation and bombarding missions, and propaganda distribution activities over enemy troops. He also fought in the Campeche and Yucatán campaign in 1915, in the Battle of Blanca Flor, amongst others. There he also performed exhibition flights.
He was founding instructor of the Escuela Nacional de Aviación, later renamed as Escuela Militar de Aviación of the Mexican Air Force when it was founded, on November 15, 1915. In 1916 he traveled to Europe, where he took part in the First World War.
After that war, he moved to El Paso, Texas United States, where he distributed Ansaldo and Lincoln aircraft. He also lived in Ciudad Juárez and in Chihuahua, Mexico, where he worked as pilot for the State Government. In multiple occasions he tried to establish a regular air flight service between El Paso, Chihuahua and Mexico City, however it is unknown if the service started operations, or the commercial success it might have had.
In 1925 he tried to set a non stop flight record in Mexico, between the cities of Chihuahua and Mexico City, accompanied by Eddie Stinson. It is not clear if he succeeded setting that record.
He married the Mexican Juliana Treviño González, sister of the General Jacinto B. Treviño, who was the Commander in Chief of the Northeast Army Corps, under whose command he served in the El Ébano combats. With her he had two sons, Jorge Luis Alfonso and Roberto Francisco.
Later, he held different positions in the Aviation affairs of the public administration. During the thirties he was an air services inspector, and assistant to the Commander of the Mexico City Central Airport. In the forties he was also Commander of the Veracruz air field. Once retired, he moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico, where he died by the end of the forties.
In some publications his surname is spelt Pufflea, Paflea or Buflea.