Lilienthal's hang glider
Planeador de Lilienthal
- Date
- 1891 · confidence high
- Place
- Derwitz, Brandenburg, Germany
- Credited to
- Otto Lilienthal
- Field
- Movement
What it is
A curved-wing glider whose pilot hangs from the body and steers by shifting weight; Lilienthal made some two thousand flights with it from artificial hills. He was the first to repeat glider flights in a documented way and to photograph them.
His book Der Vogelflug als Grundlage der Fliegekunst (1889) collected lift tables; he died in 1896 after a crash at Gollenberg.
What it led to
- aerodynamic data on cambered aerofoils used by the Wright brothers
- hang gliding and sport free flight