![\"\"](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/flight-test-in-californiaedit.jpg\")
While Lilienthal\u2019s legacy and the sight of his glider alone\nwill be enough to thrill aviation enthusiasts, the fact that the test-flight\nwill be attempted in Kitty Hawk is a special nod to the German-American\nfriendship as this town is of course home to the Wright Brothers. Replicas of\ntheir aircraft will be on display alongside Lilienthal\u2019s glider. This is only\nfitting as the Wright Brothers referred to Lilienthal\u2019s work at the time.\nWilbur Wright wrote of Lilienthal in 1912: \u201cOf all the men who attacked the\nflying problem in the 19th century, Otto Lilienthal was easily the most\nimportant. He was without question the greatest of the precursors, and the\nworld owes to him a great debt.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Lilienthal was the first person to invent, build and fly an\naircraft, more than 120 years ago in 1891. In 1895 he received the US patent\nfor his monoplane glider, which he flew himself several hundred times downhill\nin front of public. The more than 100 photographs that showed him in the air\ntriggered an epochal shift and resulted in worldwide efforts to solve the\nproblem of flight for all times. The American newspaper publisher William\nRandolph Hearst bought one of the gliders. The glider was initially flown near\nBayonne, New Jersey in April 1896. After several weeks of practice Harry B.\nBondine flew the monoplane glider over distances of up to 75 yards. The\nAmerican Engineer Octave Chanute, who was in personal contact with Lilienthal\nand later on with the Wright brothers, helped young flight enthusiasts like\nAugustus M. Hering to start even more successful flight experiments in bi-plane\ngliders within the same year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After Lilienthal\u2019s deadly crash with his soaring apparatus\nin August 1896 there were rumors however, that Lilienthal\u2019s flying machines\ncouldn\u2019t be controlled well and many doubted that they were flying stably. In\n2016 the flight stability of the monoplane glider had been proven in wind\ntunnel tests at the German Aerospace Center (DLR) for the commemoration of the\n125th anniversary of human flight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The legacy of German-American cooperation in this arena\ncontinues through today as it was the American flight instructor Andrew Beem\n(Windsports, Los Angeles) and German aerodynamics professor Markus Raffel who\ntested the stability of the \u201cGro\u00dfer Doppeldecker\u201d and have worked together to\nbring Lilienthal\u2019s work and legacy to life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n With a multitude of successful and safe flights of the\nbiplane on the Californian coast, the flight stability and especially the\nweight shifting control of the sophisticated apparatus have now been proven by Beem\nand Raffel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Beem commented on his spectacular flights: \u201cThe \u2018Large\nBi-Plane\u2019 was easy to control in pitch right from the beginning of our tests.\nAfter some minor readjustments, it was also nicely trimmed in roll and could\nnicely and intuitively be directed downhill, considering that it was designed\nin the 1890s. Flying the \u2018Large BiPlane\u2019 was one of the most fun flying\nexperiences of my career. Otto Lilienthal designed a fantastic flying machine.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The flights typically lasted 10 to 14 seconds and were\nlimited to distances of about 100 meters due to the surf. The wind came from\nthe west\/southwest with very constant speeds of between five and seven meters\nper second (18 to 25 kilometers per hour). For safety reasons, the flight\naltitude was restricted to three to four meters above the ground. \u201cFlying in\nminor heights is safely possible and can be made without risk. The apparatus is\nacceptably stable on all three axes and – given enough practice – can be safely\nsteered downhill and landed easily. I advise however, against flights in higher\naltitudes, rough weather conditions and turning flights. After all that is not\nwhat the apparatus was intended to be used for in 1895″, said Raffel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Lilienthal bi-plane replica can be seen at: JOCKEY\u2019S RIDGE STATE PARK, Carolista Dr, MP 12, Nags Head, NC, 27959<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" German aviation pioneer Otto Lilienthal\u2019s bi-plane glider \u201cGro\u00dfer Doppeldecker\u201c will be on display in the Outer Banks from December 14-16 and the German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum f\u00c3\u00bcr Raum- und Luftfahrt) will attempt a test-flight of the iconic aircraft during this time as well. The glider\u2019s first flight since 1896 successfully took place in California […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":14450,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[116,114,53],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14449","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-front-page-slider","category-international-news","category-north-carolina"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/lilienthal-s-biplane-glider-in-flight.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14449","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14449"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14449\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14457,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14449\/revisions\/14457"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14450"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14449"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14449"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14449"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/german-dutch-wind-tunneledit.jpg\")