Evening star., 1922-11-19

experiments, he few, without . rum
ming start, on a wing surface Of
eighteen square meters. almost hori-
zontally against the wind. When the
wind was stronger. he was simply
lifted from his hilltop. then sailing
slowly against the wind, reaching
points Of altitude that often were
considerably higher than the point OF
departure.
In such flights the machine some
times remained stationary in the air
for some time. SO that Lilienthal
could hold conversations with the OBJ
servers below. His method of steer
Ing consisted of bending his body
forward, backward or sideways. When
there were upward wind puffs, he
sometimes had to perform veritabie
the balance of his machine.
Lilienthal had several pupils. The
foremost among those were the Amer
lean. Chanute. and the Englishman,
Pitcher. Chanute carried his teach
er's idea with him to America and
there continued to work on it. to-
gether with his assistant. Herring.
He accomplished without accident sew
eral hundred gliding flights UP to
40 meters long. His particular claim
to Z place in the history Of flying Is
that he was the feather. in gliding. of
the Wright brothers.
TheSe two engineers are to be
forward in the technique OF flying.
Their work In the domain Of motor
equipped aviation is world famous.
but it is based on their experiments
with gliders, especially the kitty
hawk, with which they worked ex.
bay.
IN 1911 the Wright brothers took
i UP their glider experiments once
more. On October "a, 1911, they
set up records that were not beaten
until ten years later. In a wind of
2e meters per second Wright was
lifted from the top Of a dune about
IS meters high. rose upon wind puhs
(boen) to an altitude OF IS meters
and remained In the air for minutes
IS seconds. GOV ing a distance Of
400 meters. During another flight.
lasting 7 minutes Is seconds. the ma
chine remaining stationary, lowering
in the air for minutes II seconds
On these flights the Wrights used
again a biplane type Of machine.
This was made necessary because
they were obliged to balance the
bad aerodynamic effectiveness Of a
thin profile in gliding against a
smaller specific weight upon the sur
face. From the single viewpoint Of
flight. their achievement ranks
among the foremost in the world.
For many years nothing to compare
with it was done anywhere else.
During the following years. ex-
periments with gliders were made in
various places in Germany, but with
out any notable results. Then came
the war. All gliders were put in the
service of the quickest possible de-
| velopment of motor driven airplanes.
The efforts toward achieving a per-
feet glider or sailplane were subordf-
mated to other tasks. The treaty Of
Versailles deprives us. for the time
being. Of tae right to build motor
driven ariplanes, 50 that the highly
developed German airplane industry
was completely put out Of commits
sion Then it was that some builders
turned their attention again to motor
less gliders and sailplanes.
The first Rhoen contests took place
on the Wasserkuppe mountain range
fom July Is to September Z, 1920.
On this occasion, the Aerosctentific
Student Association of the Technical
High School of Aix-la Chapelle made
the most notable showing. With the
monoplane glider belonging to this
group, Klemperer made a flight ct
1880 meters In 2 minutes % seconds.
losing $50 meters in altitude. The
most distinctive points OF the mono
plane in which these flights were
made are free spreading wings with
the Junker's profile ESQ called after
it's inventory and the absence OF
outer proppins wires. Other remark
able flights were made by the young
and promising Won Lossl. Unfortun-
ately he fell, in consequence of the
breaking Of a rudder. on August 8
(the anniversary Of Lilienthars
deats1), and succumbed to his in
juries.
At the second glider contest in the
Rhoen, in 1921. there were several
good machines. also a number Of BIZ
planes, with apparatus for the pilot
to hang from in the manner Of
chanute, but improved. Because Of
their low aerodynamic effectiveness
none of these biplanes. however. could
achieve any notable success. The sue
cessful types were entered by the
technical high schools OF Aix-la-
chapelle, Hanover and Stuttgart and
the Bsvarian Aero Club.
Tho monoplane of the Aix-la-Cha.
pelle group differed from that Of
the year before only in that 1t was
lighter.
The Hanover group brought their
"vampyr" only a few days before the
end Of the contest. This machine was
built by the students. w. Blume. A.
Martens and the writer. from the
drawings by Engineer G. Madeluns.
In our work We had the benefit Of the
advice of Prof Dr.. A. Proll and En-