Founded in Reunion in 1933, the Roland Garros flying club is the 3rd oldest in France. It brings together enthusiasts for whom aviation is certainly a hobby, but also and above all a vocation.
The first aircraft to land on the island was a Farman 190 with modified engine and fuel tank. Leaving Le Bourget on October 17, 1929, the crew made up of Captain Marcel Goulette, Chief Warrant Officer René Marchesseau and Chief Sergeant Jean-Michel Bourgeois, arrived at their destination on November 26, after a raid of 24 stages in across Africa via Madagascar.
In 1933, Maurice Samat, a Lyon auto trader, imported a Potez 43 from France. He gives her the name “Monique”, after his daughter. He founded on August 10 with Paul Louis Lemerle, Emile Hugot and Paul Garros, Roland’s uncle, the first flying club on the island. Named “Roland Garros” in homage to the war hero, the club then had 58 members.
On September 10, 1933, Maurice Samat and Paul Louis Lemerle made the first Reunion-Mauritius crossing on the Potez 43. The plane landed at a place called Mont-Choisy. Two months later, with the Friendship squadron made up of 3 planes, Jean Hily made the first airmail connection between the two islands. The pilots of the Aéroclub Roland Garros make 14 return crossings between Reunion and Mauritius, until 1934.