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Encyclopedia > Otto Lilienthal
Otto Lilienthal
Otto Lilienthal

Otto Lilienthal (23 May 184810 August 1896), the German "Glider King," was a pioneer of human aviation. He was the first person to make repeated successful gliding flights. He followed an experimental approach first established earlier in the century by Sir George Cayley. Newspapers and magazines in many countries published photographs of Lilienthal gliding, favorably influencing public and scientific opinion about the possibility of flying machines becoming practical reality after ages of idle fantasy and unscientific tinkering. Otto Lilienthal From http://www. ... Otto Lilienthal From http://www. ... is the 143rd day of the year (144th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1848 (MDCCCXLVIII) was a leap year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian Calendar (or a leap year starting on Monday of the 12-day slower Julian calendar). ... is the 222nd day of the year (223rd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1896 (MDCCCXCVI) was a leap year starting on Wednesday (link will display calendar). ... Look up aviation in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Sir George Cayley, 6th Baronet (December 27, 1773 – December 15, 1857) was a prolific English engineer from Brompton-by-Sawdon, near Scarborough in Yorkshire. ...


To invent an airplane is nothing. To build one is something. But to fly is everything. –Lilienthal

Contents

Career

Lilienthal made his glides from an artificial hill he built near Berlin, and also from natural hills, especially in the Rhinow region. This article is about the capital of Germany. ... Rhinow is a town in the Havelland district, in Brandenburg, Germany. ...


While his lifelong pursuit was flight, he 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 Otto did not partake in any aviation experiments until his brother's return in 1886. Look up aviation in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...


Lilienthal's greatest contribution was to the development of heavier-than-air flight. Working in conjunction with his brother Gustav, he 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. The Derwitzer Glider was a glider that was developed by Otto Lilienthal, so named because it was tested near Derwitz in Brandenburg. ...


He could use the updraft of a 10 m/s wind against a hill to remain stationary with respect to the ground. He could shout down to a photographer below to manoeuver into the best position for a photo (of which several exist).


Lilienthal did basic research in precisely describing the flight of birds, especially of storks, and used polar diagrams for describing the aerodynamics of their wings. He then made many experiments in an attempt to gather reliable aeronautical data. For other uses, see Stork (disambiguation). ... For the Daft Punk song, see Aerodynamic (song). ...


His unpowered gliders were controlled by changing the centre of gravity by shifting his body, much like modern hang gliders. However they were difficult to manoeuver 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. Hang gliding is one of the windsports. ...


Lilienthal made many attempts to improve stability with various success. These included making a bi-plane which halved the wing span for a given wing area, and by having a hinged tail plane that could freely move upwards to make the flair at the end of a flight easier. He speculated that flapping wings of birds might be necessary and had began work on such machines.


On 9 August 1896, however, he fell from a height of 17 m (56 ft), breaking his spine. He died the next day, saying, "Kleine Opfer müssen gebracht werden!" ("Small sacrifices must be made!") and was buried in a distinct grave at Lankwitz public cemetery in Berlin. is the 221st day of the year (222nd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1896 (MDCCCXCVI) was a leap year starting on Wednesday (link will display calendar). ...


Lilienthal's work 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.[1] The Wright brothers, Orville (August 19, 1871–January 30, 1948) and Wilbur (April 16, 1867–May 30, 1912), were two Americans generally credited with building the worlds first successful airplane and making the first controlled, powered and heavier-than-air human flight on December 17, 1903. ...

The Lilienthal monument, Berlin 2006
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 [2] Image File history File links Size of this preview: 401 × 599 pixelsFull resolution (483 × 721 pixel, file size: 32 KB, MIME type: image/jpeg) (All user names refer to nl. ... Image File history File links Size of this preview: 401 × 599 pixelsFull resolution (483 × 721 pixel, file size: 32 KB, MIME type: image/jpeg) (All user names refer to nl. ... Sir George Cayley, 6th Baronet (December 27, 1773 – December 15, 1857) was a prolific English engineer from Brompton-by-Sawdon, near Scarborough in Yorkshire. ... Wilbur Wright (April 16, 1867 - May 30, 1912), the elder of the Wright brothers, seen as one of the fathers of heavier-than-air flight. ...


In fiction

A fictional characterization of Lilienthal was resurrected as an evil clone in the Japanese Read or Die (2001) novels, anime, and manga. Lilienthal also played 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. Lilienthal's great grandson appears in the Spanish short story, "El Sueño de Otto." Alice, a fictional character based on a real character from the work of Lewis Carroll. ... This article is about the Manga and Anime Ova. ... This article is about the literary concept. ... A human ovum An ovum (loosely, egg or egg cell) is a female sex cell or gamete. ... This article is about the comics published in East Asian countries. ... Theodora Goss is a Hungarian American writer of fantasy short stories. ... First awarded in 1975, the World Fantasy Awards are handed out annually at the World Fantasy Convention (WFC) to recognize outstanding achievement in the field of fantasy. ...


Also see

Leonardo da Vincis Ornithopter body. ...

References

The Encyclopaedia Judaica is a 26-volume English-language encyclopedia of the Jewish people and their faith, Judaism. ...

Footnotes

  1. ^ Crouch, ch. 16, "Tunnel Vision," pp. 226-28
  2. ^ Aero Club of America Bulletin, Sept. 1912

External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:
Wikimedia Commons has media related to:

Image File history File links This is a lossless scalable vector image. ... Wikiquote is a sister project of Wikipedia, using the same MediaWiki software. ... Image File history File links Commons-logo. ...

Gallery

Preceded by
???
Director of Aerodynamic Laboratory, University of Göttingen
???—1904
Succeeded by
Ludwig Prandtl
Persondata
NAME Lilienthal, Otto
ALTERNATIVE NAMES
SHORT DESCRIPTION German aviation pioneer
DATE OF BIRTH May 23, 1848
PLACE OF BIRTH Anklam, Germany
DATE OF DEATH August 10, 1896
PLACE OF DEATH Berlin, Germany

  Results from FactBites:
 
Otto Lilienthal - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (324 words)
Otto Lilienthal (23 May 1848 10 August 1896), the German "Glider King", was a pioneer of human aviation.
Lilienthal did basic research in precisely describing the flight of birds, especially of storks and used polar-diagrams for describing the aerodynamics of their wings.
Lilienthal helped to prove that heavier-than-air flight was practical without flapping wings, laying the groundwork for the Wright brothers a few years later to build the first successful powered airplane.
Otto Lilienthal - Wikipedia (1624 words)
Lilienthal führte den ersten Gleitflug nach dem Prinzip "schwerer als Luft" durch und unterschied sich von zahlreichen Vorläufern dadurch, dass er nicht einen einzigen Flug versuchte, sondern nach ausführlichen theoretischen und praktischen Vorarbeiten deutlich über 1.000mal gesegelt ist.
Daran nahm Gustav nicht mehr teil, eine zeitweilige Krankheit, aber auch seine beruflichen Aktivitäten hinderten ihn daran.
Insgesamt hatte Otto Lilienthal in seinem Leben 21 Flugapparate, darunter auch Flügelschlagapparate gebaut.
  More results at FactBites »

 

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