From Lilienthal to the Wrights

Bernd Lukasch

"No one equaled him in power to draw new recruits to the cause; no one equaled him in fullness
and dearness of understanding of the principles of flight; no one did so much to convince the
world of the advantages of curved wing surfaces; and no one did so much to transfer the problem
of human flight to the open air where it belonged.

As a missionary he was wonderful. He presented the cause of human flight to his readers so
earnestly, so attractively, and so convincingly that it was difficult for anyone to resist the
temptation to make an attempt at it himself, … he was without question the greatest of the
precursors, and the world owes to him a great debt."

With these words in 1912, Wilbur Wright described the man who was the most important
influence on practical flying and flight theory before the Wright brothers: the German engineer,
Otto Lilienthal.

In the period from 1891 to 1896, Lilienthal succeeded with over 2,000 gliding flights with many
different glider designs, including flapping wing models (ornithopters). His total of five hours
flying time was probably the most important in aviation history. The basis for his flying
experiments resulted in the book he published in 1889 after over 20 years of research. He
discussed the basic principles of the curved wing, its description, its possible measurements, and
stressed the importance of actually flying outdoors.

The Wrights stated later that it was the news of Lilienthal’s death that stimulated them, to focus
their interest on the problem of flight. They contacted the American authority of knowledge
about worldwide flight research, Octave Chanute, the publisher of the section “Aeronautics” in
the ”American Engineer and Railroad Journal”. Chanute exchanged correspondence with
Lilienthal for several years. His book, “Progress in Flying Machines,” included Lilienthal’s latest
article as an appendix. Chanute translated parts of Lilienthal’s book and became the scientific
link between Lilienthal and early aviation development in the United States. As a matter of fact,
Lilienthal was the only person in the world able to fly repeatedly and reliably during the period
when the Wright brothers started their flight research.

Construction of a Lilienthal glider in the United States, 1894 by A. Herring

Picture from Lilienthal's estate

Otto Lilienthal was born in Anklam/Germany on 23 May 1848, as the first of eight children of
the cloth trader Gustav Lilienthal. The financial situation of his family became more and more
difficult from year to year, so the family decided to emigrate to America. But Lilienthal's father
died unexpectedly, when Otto Lilienthal was 12 years old. It was a decision of his uncle and
guardian for Otto to study mechanical engineering in Berlin at the new founded Royal Technical
Academy.

To study the flight of birds, especially the flight of the white stork was a life long topic of
interest to the two Lilienthal brothers, Otto and one year younger Gustav. In 1873 Gustav
registered both brothers as members of the Aeronautical Society of Great Britain. In the same
year Otto Lilienthal gave his first public lecture about the theory of the flight of birds in
Germany. Especially in two time periods in the year 1874 and 1888, the brothers experimented
and researched systematically the forces of air on artificial wings and on the characteristics of
natural wind using models and kites.
In 1877, Lilienthal submitted a patent on a machine used in mining - the first of 25 patents by
Lilienthal (among them were four aviation patents). In 1883 he founded his own mechanical
engineering company for steam boilers and engines in Berlin.

In 1886 he became a member in the "Deutscher Verein zur Förderung der Luftschiffahrt"
(German Club for Promotion of Aviation) in Berlin. Three years later he published his book "Der
Vogelflug als Grundlage der Fliegekunst" ("Bird Flight As The Basis Of Aviation" - English
translation 1911).

A short time later he introduced a 25% profit sharing scheme for the workers in his company that
became the first flying machine factory in the world.

In 1890 Lilienthal began to experiment with man-carrying flying machines. Within one year, he
succeeded with first jumps and flights covering a distance of about 80 feet near the villages of
Derwitz and Krilow just outside of Potsdam. Besides improving glider construction and glider
flying, as well as his very innovative work in the field of steam engines, Lilienthal became very
interested in the Berlin 'Volkstheater' (people's theatre) –movement (1892).

In 1893, Lilienthal constructed a "flight station" near his home and began his flight experiments
in the "Rhinow Hills," his favourite practice area for gliding up to a distance of about 800 feet.
He began construction of several flying machines, among them a flapping wing machine driven
by a carbon-acid engine. For the purpose of training and testing of new aircraft closer to his
home and factory, Lilienthal built his so-called 'Fliegeberg' (Aviation Hill) that still exists in
Lichterfelde, at that time a suburb (today a district) of Berlin. This was his second "airfield" with
a glider hangar on the top of the hill.

In 1894 Lilienthal started serial production of the so-called "Normal-Glider". With one exception
(Vienna) all original Lilienthal gliders that exist today are production models from this series
(Washington, London, Moscow, Munich).
Flight using big Biplane with the "Aviation Hill" in the background, October 7, 1895

In 1895 engineers and scientists from around the world came to Germany and visited Lilienthal,
among them S. P. Langley, Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington and N. J.
Shukowski, aerodynamics expert from Moscow.

Lilienthal’s dramatic demise after a crash on August 9, 1896 was an accident on a routine flight
with a standard glider. Steering with body shifting through a strong thermal did not succeed. The
period of successful flights and then the accident demonstrated his flight concept and its limited
steering ability. It is symbolic for his success but also for his limitation.

Lilienthal's worldwide fame is based on his successful flights. Today, we look at his controlled
and reproducible glides in 1891 covering a distance of 80 feet as the beginning of successful
human flight. After 1893, Lilienthal was able to cover distances of about 800 feet in the Rhinow
Hills. These accomplishments were not surpassed prior to his death in 1896 by anyone.

These first practical successes were the outcome of a research program on which he worked with
great determination and creativity for more than 20 years. Today we call his research "the
beginning of aerodynamics".
It was only after he had presented his full experimental research and interpretations in his book
that he started to construct man-carrying flying machines. Some of his works and discoveries in
the physics of flight should be highlighted:

 The conclusive account of the fact, that the mechanical work in order to lift a body in still
air is fundamentally different from the flight effort of birds;
 The experimental account of the advantages of the curved wing surfaces and the attempt
to interpret the results through streamlines;
 To separate the resultant air force in its lift and drag components;
 The analysis of the results still used in the same way today: the "polar diagram";
  The analysis of different wing designs and first statements about aspect ratio, wing shape
and profile were partly proved by experiments and partly by intuition.
 The development and use of very simple measuring devices, which supplied the first
actual available measurements of ratio and direction of the resultant force of the air. This
was successful because of the size of the apparatus by which some measuring mistakes
became irrelevant. The most important measuring devices were different whirling arm
apparatus (aerodynamic balance) and an instrument for measuring the force of air
currents in natural wind.

Lilienthal defined his research an impressive conclusion:

"All flight is based upon producing air pressure,

all flight energy consists in overcoming air pressure."

One of the most important sources of our knowledge, about Lilienthal's flight technique, is the
great number of remaining photographs. The 137 known photos from the period from 1891 to
1896, which were made during Lilienthal's flight tests, not only document the aviation history
but also the history of photography. Because of sensitive film material and high shutter speed for
the "momentum (action) photography", the production of "moving pictures" was a preliminary
stage for motion pictures (the movies).

Lilienthal asked photographers regularly to help document the development of his flight
technique. Most of his photographers (probably all) are well known.

Most of the pictures are excellent quality. Lilienthal used the most beautiful pictures in his
annual reports. Today, large collections of these impressive pictures are in the Deutsches
Museum in Munich and in the Otto-Lilienthal-Museum. But Lilienthal was aware of the
unrealistic impression of these photos, when he said in one of his lectures:

"At the end I want to ask you not to take my achievements for more than what they are. Through
the photographic pictures, where you can see me flying high above in the sky, one can get the
impression that the problem is already solved. That is not at all the case. I have to admit that it
will still take quite a lot of work to turn this simple gliding flight into long distance human flight.
The achievements so far for human flight are nothing more than were the first insecure steps of a
child related to the walking of men." (Otto Lilienthal in a lecture in November 1894).

But these pictures clearly show: Lilienthal did solve the initial problem of flight, i. e. he found
the source of the necessary lift for human flight. But there were two other problems he did not
solve. The solution of these problems, in the evolution of the invention of the flying machine
came through the research of the Wright brothers:

First: The steering of the aircraft with Lilienthal's method of shifting the centre of mass was not
sufficient in his glider design for non-standard or dangerous situations. The maximum weight
shift was not large enough in comparison to the size of the glider.
Second: Lilienthal's driving force concept was the concept of wing flapping. Today, we know,
that wing flapping as the birds do, has not been realized as a successful technique. Possibly this
situation may change in the future, but for the birth of the aircraft this concept was not
successful.

Small wing flapping apparatus, August 16, 1894

But nevertheless, the first step towards the design of the aircraft was realized successfully
between the years of 1891 and 1896, repeated human flight with artificial wings from the top of a
hill to the ground over a distance of about 800 feet.

The Otto-Lilienthal-Museum celebrated the 150th birthday of Otto Lilienthal in 1998 with a
conference about the influence of Lilienthal on the work of the Wright brothers and about Octave
Chanute. During this conference Werner Schwipps presented his book: ”The Wright Brothers
and Their Aircraft in Germany” (Otto-Lilienthal-Museum Anklam, 1998/2013, available in
German only). This is the first publication about the Wright factory in Germany, at that time the
most successful one in Europe, and the outstanding role of the Wright brothers on the
development of aviation in Germany.