[ARP]

FromDayOne

Your suggestion to build a Lilienthal glider and putting it on a test rig to see how it performs:- The answer is that Stephan Nitsch did just that using the German test rig. I have the film of it somewhere. The glider performed well with good lift but it had a structual failure of the wing spars as the speed was increased.

Tony Prentice (ARP)

[ARP]

Stephan and myself trying out one of his replicas on the Wasserkuppe :- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpDrGLF51SY

[Bob Kuczewski]

Stephan and myself trying out one of his replicas on the Wasserkuppe :- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpDrGLF51SY

Great footage:

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But I'm glad I watched it to the end:

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How did it feel to imagine yourself a hundred years ago taking man's first steps into the air?

[ARP]

Bob (and everyone interested in the history of our sport),

I first tried a Lilienthal type of my own construction around 1963/4 and eventually flew it in 1968. You can see some early film of it during some ground runs. Unfortunately no film of it flying was taken:- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KwWi1X3h__0 A contempory of Lilienthal was an English guy called Percy Pilcher who also built similar craft. Mine was not a copy of any particular glider just based on these types. I always wanted to visit Germany and the sites Lilienthal flew but they were in East Germany and not open to the West. Stephan Nitsch was in East Germany and he too had the desire to build and fly Lilienthals gliders. He became an expert on their construction and he built most of the gliders on display at the Otto Lilienthal Museum in Anklam, the birth place of Lilienthal. After the Iron Curtain was lifted it enabled me to visit Stephan and the Otto Liliental museum. Together we visited the flying sites of Lilienthal and when Stephan came to England I took him to see the flying sites of Pilcher. See Stephans web site:- http://wase.urz.uni-magdeburg.de/anitsc ... fly/ni.htm

To see these sites and to try and fly those gliders was a thrill difficult to describe but it was like touching history and holding hands with the true pioneers of flight. It is tinged with sadness though when I watch the film because Stephan is no longer with us having lost his fight with cancer.

Hope this gives you some idea of how it felt to me.

Tony

[ARP]

Sorry should have addressed it to bobk but it is to all interested in the history of our sport.

Tony

 
 
[ Moderator's Note: At Tony's request in this post, the salutation of the previous post was changed from "Doug" to "Bob (and everyone interested in the history of our sport)"]

[JoeF]

Click through the still photo to see video.

... There could be a replica (or close mod, perhaps with Safe-Splat) for wing runners and pilots in every city of the world.

[JoeF]

I do not know what is real or not in the following: (the spirit and dream are real ... )

Die Grashüpfer / Les Facheurs des Marguerites

[ARP]

Joe,

One or two of the flying sequences from the film could possibly be real the rest is staged camera work and a model in flight. The Lilienthal flying position requires the pilot to support himself on the forearms with the shoulders against a back stop. The pivot point is the shoulder joint linked via the to the elbow to the airframe. The glider used at the Wasserkuppe did not have the back stops fitted which was a mistake as it allowed the pilot to move too far back leaving the biceps to take the body weight alone. Not something anyone can do for long. The last clip of the Wasserkuppe scene I have moved too far back and the forearm rest broke resulting in a stall and then a nose into the ground. The stall on the Lilienthal glider is very sharp so it is important that the pilot's upper body remains foreward and only the lower half is used for the pendulmn control.

On the early bamboo Rogallo type I used parallel bars which allowed whole body movement to find the balance point of C of G to the centre of lift ( the sweet point mentioned by Barry Palmer) and then swing the lower body by "body English" for manoevering control.The Chanute replica, built by Stephan, had parallel bars and control was in the same manner.

Tony

[Bob Kuczewski]

Hope this gives you some idea of how it felt to me.

That's probably as close as I'll ever get.

Thanks very much for sharing this unique slice of the history of flight. Please feel free to build on it and discuss it and share it any way you like.

It's an honor to have pioneers like yourself, and Joe, and Neil on this forum.

Sincerely,
Bob Kuczewski

[ARP]

bobk,

I am happy to share what is a passion for me as I suspect it is for most of us that fly.

I understand you have just had surgery ( reported elsewhere on US Hawks) so try not to laugh too much if you view the rest of my Youtube videos as it might hurt your stomach.

Tony