Otto Lilienthal

Otto Lilienthal (born the May 23rd 1848 with Anklam, dead the August 10th 1896 with Berlin) was a German pioneer aeronautics. He died following a fall on the spinal column. As of the first flights of the Brothers Montgolfier, the Aéronautique was directed in two directions: lightest and heaviest that air. This last way was explored with much rigor by Otto Lilienthal which remains for the majority of glide of the world the first of them.

Its research on the form of the plans enabled him scientifically to show qualities of bearing pressure of the wing with suction face which it published in its work Der Vogelflug als Grundlage der Fliegekunst ( flight of the bird, bases of the art of the flight ) appeared in 1889 with Berlin.

It carried out between 1891 and 1896 two thousand planed flights attested since an artificial hill near Berlin. These machines were closer to the pendular hang gliders of our time than of the Planeur of performance. These flights were accomplished with constructions carried out starting from veins of willow and cloth-lined cotton. They could plane up to 400 meters while launching out top of a high hill of approximately twenty meters. The control of the machine was done by displacements of the body as for the contemporary pendular hang gliders. It made a fatal fall alas on August 9th, 1896 and declared before its death “of the sacrifices must be made”, it was about to adapt an engine to its sailplane.


le first of the vélivoles

Until its death in 1896 during a flight, it built eighteen machines which it tried out itself.

The first sailplane in the world succeeding in supporting the weight of a man made a flight of 25 m, this machine had been improved during the tests with Derwitz/Krilow (Brandenburg).

Data sheet

The principle of the pendular sailplane of Otto Lilienthal found a new topicality during the Seventies by the practice of the Deltaplane.

See too

External bonds

  • Museum Lilienthal
  • Bible of the wings: OTTO LILIENTHAL
  • Reconstitution of Normal by French students
  • the page devoted to Otto Lilienthal on Objects of the Sky

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