Otto Lilienthal - wikipedia Otto Lilienthal Otto Lilienthal Otto Lilienthal, c. 1896 Karl Wilhelm Otto Lilienthal ( 1848 - 05 - 23 ) 23 May 1848 Anklam, Province of Pomerania 10 August 1896 ( 1896 - 08 - 10 ) ( aged 48 ) Berlin, Germany Cause of death Glider crash Resting place Lankwitz Cemetery, Berlin Nationality Prussian, German Occupation Engineer Known for Successful gliding experiments Spouse ( s ) Agnes Fischer ( m. 1878 -- 96 ) Children Relatives Gustav Lilienthal, brother Otto Lilienthal ( 23 May 1848 -- 10 August 1896 ) was a German pioneer of aviation who became known as the flying man. He was the first person to make well - documented, repeated, successful flights with unpowered airplanes. Newspapers and magazines published photographs of Lilienthal gliding, favorably influencing public and scientific opinion about the possibility of flying machines becoming practical. On 9 August 1896, his glider stalled and he was unable to regain control. Falling from about 15 m ( 50 ft ), he broke his neck and died the next day, 10 August 1896. Contents 1 Early life 2 Experiments in flight 2.1 Projects 2.2 Test locations 3 Worldwide notice 4 Final flight 5 Legacy 6 In popular culture 7 Gallery 8 See also 9 References 9.1 Notes 9.2 Bibliography 10 External links Early Life Lilienthal was born on 23 May 1848 in Anklam, Pomerania Province, German kingdom of Prussia. According to his birth certificate, his parents were Carl Gustav, a jewish merchant, and Caroline Wilhemina née Pohle. They belonged to the St. Nikolai evangelical church community in Anklam, where he later attended grammar school, and where he eventually studied the flight of birds with his brother Gustav ( 1849 -- 1933 ). Fascinated by the idea of manned flight, Lilienthal and his brother made strap - on wings, but failed in their attempts to fly. He then attended the regional technical school in Potsdam for two years and trained at the Schwarzkopf Company before becoming a professional design engineer. He would later attend the Royal Technical Academy in Berlin. In 1867, Lilienthal began experiments on the force of air in earnest, interrupted when he served in the Franco - Prussian War. As a staff engineer in various engineering companies, Lilienthal received his first patent for a mining machine. Five years later he founded his own company to make boilers and steam engines. Lilienthal published his famous book Birdflight as the Basis of Aviation in 1889. Lilienthal was born to middle - class parents. They had eight children, but only three of them survived infancy : Otto, Gustav, and Marie. The brothers worked together all their lives on technical, social, and cultural projects. On 6 June 1878, Lilienthal married Agnes Fischer, daughter of a deputy. Music brought them together ; she was trained in piano and voice while Lilienthal played the French horn and had a good tenor voice. After marriage, they took up residence in Berlin and had four children : Otto, Anna, Fritz, and Frida. Experiments in flight Mechanics of white stork flight in his Der Vogelflug als Grundlage der Fliegekunst ( 1889 ) Lilienthal in mid-flight, c. 1895 Lilienthal 's greatest contribution was in the development of heavier - than - air flight. He made his flights from an artificial hill he built near Berlin and from natural hills, especially in the Rhinow region. The filing of a U.S. Patent in 1894 by Lilienthal directed pilots to grip the `` bar '' for carrying and flying the hang glider. The A-frame of Percy Pilcher and Lilienthal echoes in today 's control frame for hang gliders and ultralight aircraft. Working in conjunction with his brother Gustav, Lilienthal made over 2,000 flights in gliders of his design starting in 1891 with his first glider version, the Derwitzer, until his death in a gliding crash in 1896. His total flying time was five hours. At the beginning, in 1891, Lilienthal succeeded with jumps and flights covering a distance of about 25 metres ( 82 ft ). He could use the updraft of a 10 m / s wind against a hill to remain stationary with respect to the ground, shouting to a photographer on the ground to manoeuvre into the best position for a photo. In 1893, in the Rhinow Hills, he was able to achieve flight distances as long as 250 metres ( 820 ft ). This record remained unbeaten for him or anyone else at the time of his death. Lilienthal did research in accurately describing the flight of birds, especially storks, and used polar diagrams for describing the aerodynamics of their wings. He made many experiments in an attempt to gather reliable aeronautical data. Projects This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. ( August 2017 ) Models of his gliders Restored 1894 glider displayed at the National Air and Space Museum. It is one of five surviving Lilienthal gliders in the world. During his short flying career, Lilienthal developed a dozen models of monoplanes, wing flapping aircraft and two biplanes. His gliders were carefully designed to distribute weight as evenly as possible to ensure a stable flight. Lilienthal controlled them by changing the center of gravity by shifting his body, much like modern hang gliders. However they were difficult to maneuvre and had a tendency to pitch down, from which it was difficult to recover. One reason for this was that he held the glider by his shoulders, rather than hanging from it like a modern hang glider. Only his legs and lower body could be moved, which limited the amount of weight shift he could achieve. Lilienthal made many attempts to improve stability with varying degrees of success. These included making a biplane which halved the wing span for a given wing area, and by having a hinged tailplane that could move upwards to make the flare at the end of a flight easier. He speculated that flapping wings of birds might be necessary and had begun work on such a powered aircraft. Aircraft produced by Otto Lilienthal Name Date Wing Glider Notes Span ( ft ) Area ( sq ft ) Max. length ( ft ) Length ( ft ) Weight ( kg ) Derwitzer Glider 1891 25 ( later 18 ) 108 ( later 84 ) 6.6 12.8 18 Wing curvature : 1 / 10 of length. Südende Glider 1892 31 158 8.2 3.3 24 Wing curvature : 1 / 20 of length. Maihöhe Rhinow Glider 1893 22 or 23 150 8.2 14.3 20 Small Ornithopter 1893 -- 1896 22 129 8.2 5.5 Weight with CO2 cylinder : 10 kg. Normal soaring apparatus 1894 22 - 23 140 - 146 7.9 / 8.2 16.1 - 17.4 20 At least nine gliders sold. Original gliders or fragments are preserved in museums in London, Moscow, Munich and Washington. Sturmflügelmodell 1894 20 104 6.6 14.8 Original can be seen at the Technisches Museum Wien. Vorflügelapparat 1895 29 204 9.8 18.4 Small Biplane 1895 19.7 / 17.1 104 / 105 7.2 / 6.9 15.7 Big Biplane 1895 21.6 / 20.7 146 / 112 7.5 / 7.5 16.1 Big Ornithopter 1896 27.9 188 8.2 17.4 The unveiling ceremony of the new monument in Berlin. Gustav ( left ) and Paul Baylich, August 1932 While his lifelong pursuit was flight, Lilienthal was also an inventor and devised a small engine that worked on a system of tubular boilers. His engine was much safer than the other small engines of the time. This invention gave him the financial freedom to focus on aviation. His brother Gustav ( 1849 -- 1933 ) was living in Australia at the time, and Lilienthal did not engage in aviation experiments until his brother 's return in 1885. There are 25 known Lilienthal patents. Test locations Lilienthal performed his first gliding attempts in mid-1891 at the so - called `` Windmühlenberg '' near to the villages of Krielow and Derwitz which are located west of Potsdam. In 1892, Lilienthal 's training area was a hill formation called `` Maihöhe '' in Steglitz, near Berlin. He built a 4 metres ( 13 ft ) high shed, in the shape of a tower, on top of it. This way, he obtained a `` jumping off '' place 10 metres ( 33 ft ) high. The shed served also for storing his apparatus. In 1893, Lilienthal also started to perform gliding attempts in the `` Rhinower Berge '', at the `` Hauptmannsberg '' near to Rhinow and later, 1896, at the `` Gollenberg '' near to Stölln. In 1894, Lilienthal built an artificial conical hill near his home in Lichterfelde, called Fliegeberg ( lit. `` Fly Hill '' ). It allowed him to launch his gliders into the wind no matter which direction it was coming from. The hill was 15 metres ( 49 ft ) high. There was a regular crowd of people that were interested in seeing his gliding experiments. In 1932, the Fliegeberg was redesigned by a Berlin architect Fritz Freymüller as a memorial to Lilienthal. On top of the hill was built a small temple - like construction, consisting of pillars supporting a slightly sloping round roof. Inside is placed a silver globe inscribed with particulars of famous flights. Lilienthal 's brother Gustav and the old mechanic and assistant Paul Baylich attended the unveiling ceremony on 10 August 1932 ( 36 years after Otto 's death ). Worldwide notice Reports of Lilienthal 's flights spread in Germany and elsewhere, with photographs appearing in scientific and popular publications. Among those who photographed him were pioneers such as Ottomar Anschütz and American physicist Robert Williams Wood. He soon became known as the ' father of flight ' as he had successfully controlled a heavier - than - air aircraft in sustained flight. Lilienthal was a member of the Verein zur Förderung der Luftschifffahrt, and regularly detailed his experiences in articles in its journal, the Zeitschrift für Luftschifffahrt und Physik der Atmosphäre, and in the popular weekly publication Prometheus. These were translated in the United States, France and Russia. Many people from around the world came to visit him, including Samuel Pierpont Langley from the United States, Russian Nikolai Zhukovsky, Englishman Percy Pilcher and Austrian Wilhelm Kress. Zhukovsky wrote that Lilienthal 's flying machine was the most important invention in the aviation field. Lilienthal corresponded with many people, among them Octave Chanute, James Means, Alois Wolfmüller and other flight pioneers. Final flight On 9 August 1896, Lilienthal went, as on previous weekends, to the Rhinow Hills. The day was very sunny and not too hot ( about 20 ° C, or 68 ° F ). The first flights were successful, reaching a distance of 250 metres ( 820 ft ) in his normal glider. During the fourth flight Lilienthal 's glide pitched forward heading down quickly. Lilienthal had previously had difficulty in recovering from this position because the glider relied on weight shift which was difficult to achieve when pointed at the ground. His attempts failed and he fell from a height of about 15 metres ( 49 ft ), while still in the glider. Paul Beylich, Lilienthal 's glider mechanic, transported him by horse - drawn carriage to Stölln, where he was examined by a physician. Lilienthal had a fracture of the third cervical vertebra and soon became unconscious. Later that day he was transported in a cargo train to Lehrter train station in Berlin, and the next morning to the clinic of Ernst von Bergmann, one of the most famous and successful surgeons in Europe at the time. Lilienthal died there a few hours later ( about 36 hours after the crash ) ; his last words to his brother Gustav were `` Opfer müssen gebracht werden ! '' ( Sacrifices must be made ! ). Otto Lilienthal was buried at Lankwitz public cemetery in Berlin. Legacy Lilienthal 's research was well known to the Wright brothers, and they credited him as a major inspiration for their decision to pursue manned flight. However, they abandoned his aeronautical data after two seasons of gliding and began using their own wind tunnel data. Bronze plaque medal of Stölln, where Lilienthal had his fatal accident The Lilienthal monument, Berlin 2006 Of all the men who attacked the flying problem in the 19th century, Otto Lilienthal was easily the most important... It is true that attempts at gliding had been made hundreds of years before him, and that in the nineteenth century, Cayley, Spencer, Wenham, Mouillard, and many others were reported to have made feeble attempts to glide, but their failures were so complete that nothing of value resulted. -- Wilbur Wright Berlin 's busiest airport, Berlin Tegel `` Otto Lilienthal '' Airport, is named after him. In September 1909, Orville Wright was in Germany making demonstration flights at Tempelhof aerodrome. He paid a call to Lilienthal 's widow and, on behalf of himself and Wilbur, paid tribute to Lilienthal for his influence on aviation and on their own initial experiments in 1899. In popular culture In the music video for `` Losing My Religion '' by R.E.M., workers build an ornithopter named `` Otto '' in honor of Lilienthal. Lilienthal plays a major part ( in absentia ) in Theodora Goss 's short story `` The Wings of Meister Wilhelm, '' nominated for a World Fantasy Award and published in her anthology In the Forest of Forgetting. A fictional characterization of Lilienthal was resurrected as an evil clone in the Japanese Read or Die ( 2001 ) novels, anime, and manga. A Lilienthal glider serves as a major plot element in Paul Gazis 's Webserial `` The Airship Flying Cloud, R - 505 ''. `` Lilienthals Traum '' ( `` Lilienthal 's Dream '' ) is a song by Reinhard Mey that charts Lilienthal 's flights and death. Lilienthal is mentioned as a `` Great Scientist '' in the video game Civilization Revolution. Gallery Lilienthal was regularly joined by photographers at his request. Most of them are well known, like Ottomar Anschütz. Lilienthal was also constantly taking his own photographs of his flying machines after 1891. There are at least 145 known photographs documenting his test flights, some of excellent quality. All of them are available online at Otto Lilienthal Museum website. The only negatives, preserved in the Deutsches Museum in Munich, were destroyed during World War II. Flight attempt of Lilienthal on the Derwitzer Glider, Derwitz, 1891 Lilienthal preparing for a Small Ornithopter flight, 16 August 1894 Vorflügelapparat, 29 May 1895 Normal soaring apparatus with the enlarged tail, 29 June 1895 See also Aviation portal Lilienthal Gliding Medal Otto Lilienthal Museum Aviation history Albrecht Berblinger Abbas Ibn Firnas George Cayley Jean - Marie Le Bris John Joseph Montgomery German inventors and discoverers References Notes ^ Jump up to : `` Otto Lilienthal. '' Encyclopedia of World Biography, 2004. Retrieved : 7 January 2012. Jump up ^ e.g. newspaper article New York Herald August 12th, 1896 Jump up ^ ( 1 ) DLR baut das erste Serien - Flugzeug der Welt nach, 2017. Retrieved : 3 March 2017. Jump up ^ http://www.carnetdevol.org/Otto/naissance.html Jump up ^ Encyclopedia of Transportation. New York : Rand - McNally, 1977. Jump up ^ Anderson 2001, p. 156. Jump up ^ Anderson 2001, p. 157. Jump up ^ `` Flying - Machine Otto Lilienthal. Patents. Retrieved : 16 November 2012. Jump up ^ `` From Lilienthal to the Wrights. '' Otto Lilienthal Museum. Retrieved : 8 January 2012. Jump up ^ `` From Lilienthal to the Wrights. '' Otto Lilienthal Museum, 2003. Retrieved : 7 January 2012. ^ Jump up to : `` Pioneers of Flight : Otto Lilienthal. '' Discovery Channel. Retrieved : 8 January 2012. Jump up ^ `` Patent archives of the Museum. '' Otto Lilienthal Museum. Retrieved : 13 January 2012. Jump up ^ Seifert and Waßermann : Otto Lilienthal. Leben und Werk. Eine Biographie. Hamburg 1992 : pp. 62 -- 65. ISBN 3 - 924562 - 02 - 4 Jump up ^ Chanute, O. `` The Flying Man. '' Progress in Flying Machines. Retrieved : 16 November 2012. Jump up ^ Seifert and Waßermann : Otto Lilienthal. Leben und Werk. Eine Biographie. Hamburg 1992 : pp. 73 -- 80. ISBN 3 - 924562 - 02 - 4 Jump up ^ `` The man who jumped off hills : Otto Lilienthal 's Fliegerberg. '' journeytoberlin.com. Retrieved : 8 January 2012. Jump up ^ Shlomovitz, Netanel. `` Before the Beginning. '' Israeli Air Force. Retrieved : 8 January 2012. Jump up ^ `` From Lichtenrade to Lichterfelde Süd '' ( in German ) Archived 2012 - 01 - 21 at the Wayback Machine. Berlin.de. Retrieved : 8 January 2012. Jump up ^ `` Monument to Otto Lilienthal. '' Nature, Volume 130, Issue 3277, 20 August 1932, p. 270. Jump up ^ Harsch, Viktor, Benny Bardrum and Petra Illig. `` Lilienthal 's Fatal Glider Crash in 1896 : Evidence Regarding the Cause of Death. '' Aviation, Space, and Environmental Medicine, Volume 79, Issue 101, October 2008, pp. 993 -- 994. Retrieved : 7 January 2012. Jump up ^ Ludwig, Charles. The Wright Brothers : They Gave Us Wings. Mott Media. p. 183. ISBN 978 - 0 - 88062 - 141 - 0. Jump up ^ Crouch 1989, pp. 226 -- 228. Jump up ^ Aero Club of America Bulletin, September 1912. Jump up ^ `` R.E.M. - Losing My Religion ( Official Music Video ) '' ( go to 3 : 06 mark ) YouTube. Retrieved : 10 October 2017. Jump up ^ `` The Airship Flying Cloud, R - 505. '' airships.paulgazis.com. Retrieved : 16 November 2012. Jump up ^ Mey, Reinhard, lyrics : ' Lilienthals Traum ' Reinhard Mey. Retrieved : 21 December 2016. Jump up ^ Lukasch, Bernd. `` Lilienthal and Photography. '' Otto Lilienthal Museum. Retrieved : 13 January 2012. Jump up ^ `` Lilienthal Photo archives. '' Otto Lilienthal Museum. Retrieved : 13 January 2012. Bibliography Anderson, John D. A History of Aerodynamics and Its Impact on Flying Machines. Cambridge, UK : Cambridge University Press, 2001, First edition 1999. ISBN 978 - 0 - 521 - 66955 - 9. Crouch, Tom D. The Bishop 's Boys : A Life of Wilbur and Orville Wright. New York : W.W. Norton & Company, 1989. ISBN 0 - 393 - 30695 - X. Lilienthal, Otto. Birdflight as the Basis of Aviation. First edition, 1911 reprinted 2001 : ISBN 0 - 938716 - 58 - 1. ( Translation from German edition, Berlin 1889 : Der Vogelflug als Grundlage der Fliegekunst reprinted 2003 : ISBN 3 - 9809023 - 8 - 2. ) Nitsch, Stephan. From the jump to the flight. Berlin '' Brandenburgisches Verlagshaus, 1991. ISBN 3 - 327 - 01090 - 0. Modified second edition : Die Flugzeuge von Otto Lilienthal. Technik - Dokumentation - Rekonstruktion. ( The airplanes of Otto Lilienthal. Technique - Documentation - Reconstruction ). Otto - Lilienthal - Museum Anklam, 2016. ISBN 978 - 3 - 941681 - 88 - 0. External links Find more aboutOtto Lilienthalat Wikipedia 's sister projects Media from Wikimedia Commons Quotations from Wikiquote Biography / family tree of Otto Lilienthal Lilienthal 's appendix from Chanute 's book Progress in Flying Machines 1893. Movies and simulations `` Lilienthal in England '' a 1967 Flight article Otto Lilienthal at Answers.com Otto Lilienthal ( 1889 ) Der Vogelflug als Grundlage der Fliegekunst - digital facsimile from Linda Hall Library Otto Lilienthal ( 1911 ) Birdflight as the basis of aviation, compiled from the results of numerous experiments made by O. and G. Lilienthal - digital facsimile from Linda Hall Library Otto Lilienthal Gustav Lilienthal ( brother ) Otto Lilienthal Museum Lilienthal Gliding Medal Aircraft Derwitzer Glider Südende Glider Maihöhe Rhinow Glider Small Ornithopter Normal soaring apparatus Sturmflügelmodell Vorflügelapparat Small Biplane Big Biplane Big Ornithopter Aviators killed in early aviation accidents Aug 11, 1896 Otto Lilienthal Oct 2, 1899 Percy Pilcher Sep 17, 1908 Thomas Selfridge Sep 7, 1909 Eugène Lefebvre Sep 22, 1909 Ferdinand Ferber Jan 4, 1910 Léon Delagrange Apr 2, 1910 Hubert Le Blon Jul 12, 1910 Charles Rolls Sep 27, 1910 Jorge Chávez Nov 17, 1910 Ralph Johnstone Dec 31, 1910 Archibald Hoxsey Dec 31, 1910 John Moisant Jan 9, 1911 Edvard Rusjan May 10, 1911 George E.M. Kelly Jun 18, 1911 Léon Lemartin Sep 16, 1911 Édouard Nieuport Oct 19, 1911 Eugene Ely Oct 31, 1911 John Montgomery Feb 17, 1912 Graham Gilmour Apr 3, 1912 Galbraith Rogers Jul 1, 1912 Harriet Quimby Jul 5, 1912 Eustace Loraine Sep 28, 1912 Lewis C. Rockwell Sep 28, 1912 Frank S. Scott Dec 15, 1912 Wilfred Parke May 27, 1913 Desmond Arthur Aug 07, 1913 Samuel Franklin Cody Sep 13, 1913 Aurel Vlaicu Dec 10, 1913 Léon Letort VIAF : 25394600 LCCN : n85249118 ISNI : 0000 0000 8206 979X GND : 118572970 SUDOC : 181558300 NDL : 01036411 NKC : jn20000720151 IATH : w61z4jfr Retrieved from `` https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Otto_Lilienthal&oldid=819142906 '' Categories : 1848 births 1896 deaths Otto Lilienthal Aviation accidents and incidents in 1896 19th - century German aviation Aviation inventors Aviation pioneers Aviators killed in aviation accidents or incidents German aerospace engineers German aviators German inventors German people of Swedish descent Glider pilots People from Anklam People from the Province of Pomerania Victims of aviation accidents or incidents in Germany Glider flight record holders German aviation record holders Hidden categories : Webarchive template wayback links Articles with hCards Articles needing additional references from August 2017 All articles needing additional references Articles containing German - language text Wikipedia articles with VIAF identifiers Wikipedia articles with LCCN identifiers Wikipedia articles with ISNI identifiers Wikipedia articles with GND identifiers Wikipedia articles with SNAC - ID identifiers Talk Contents About Wikipedia Wikiquote Azərbaycanca Беларуская Български Català Čeština Dansk Deutsch Eesti Ελληνικά Español Esperanto Euskara فارسی Français Frysk Gaeilge 한국어 Hrvatski Ido Bahasa Indonesia Italiano עברית Latviešu Lëtzebuergesch Magyar Македонски Malagasy മലയാളം Nederlands 日本 語 Norsk پنجابی Piemontèis Polski Português Română Русский Scots Simple English Slovenčina کوردی Српски / srpski Suomi Svenska தமிழ் Türkçe Українська Tiếng Việt 中文 Edit links This page was last edited on 7 January 2018, at 18 : 31. 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Question: who worked with manned gliders in the 1890's
Answer: Otto Lilienthal