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118 WerteLand Baden-Württemberg
The Conquest of the Skies. The Dream of Flight.
Since the beginning of time, man has wanted to
conquer the universe above him. As Ovid (43 BCE
0-17 CE) described, Daedalus invented the wings
that were to free himself and his son Icarus from
the tyranny of Minos. Although Daedalus warned
his son about the heat of the sun, and the spray
from the sea, Icarus flew too recklessly, and rose
too close to the sun. The heat melted the wax which
held the wings together and he came crashing back
to earth.
Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) constructed muscle-powered
swinging wings, a parachute, and the
forerunner of the helicopter.
How Baden and Württemberg conquered the skies.
We should never forget aviation pioneers such as
Otto Lilienthal (1848-1896), Gustav Weißkopf
(1874-1927) and the brothers Wilbur Wright (1867-
1912) and Orville Wright (1871-1948), and the
many other famous names, whose inventions and
personal courage advanced the development of
flight throughout the world. Nevertheless it is interesting
to look back at the parts Baden and Württemberg
played in the history of aviation. More
than one hundred years ago, the dream of manned
flight was still alive in this region and a few short
decades later it began to grow in importance.
Albrecht Ludwig Berblinger (1770-1829), a tailor
from Ulm, built a glider that was capable of flight,
but he came to grief in two demonstrations for the
King. Max Eyth captured the drama of 1811 in the
title of his novel: “The tailor of Ulm. History of a
man born two hundred years too early“. On 12th
August 1888, the first motor-driven airship in the
world rose above the courtyard of the Daimler‘ factory
on a four-kilometre flight powered by a Daimler
motor. It was designed by Dr. Karl Wölfert, a
bookseller from Leipzig.
The LZ1, which was powered by two four-cylinder
motors, each with 16 HP, was designed by
Ferdinand Graf von Zeppelin (1838-1917), who
was born in Constance. On the 2nd of July 1900
it lifted off from that town for a flight across Lake
Constance.
Hellmut Hirth (1886-1938) from Heilbronn made
his first ventures aloft from the Cannstatt Wasen
(then the first airfield in South-West Germany) with
a Daimler 50-HP airship engine, in 1909 and 1910.
And in 1929, the first large-bodied aircraft in the
world, the D-Wal flying boat, was built at the aircraft
wharf in Friedrichshafen which was founded
by Claudius Dornier (1914-1986) from Friedrichshafen:
It had a range of 2,200 kilometres and could
carry 169 passengers.
Light materials and resistance to air pressure were
the ecological and economic challenges of the
era. At this point we should also remember Hans
Klemm (1885-1961) from Stuttgart, the Swabian
engineer and entrepreneur. His lightweight aircraft
made him one of the most important pioneers in
aircraft construction and his Böblingen-based company
was a crucible of ideas that influenced the
progress and future of the aircraft industry.
In 1910, the aircraft designer Ernst Heinkel
(1888-1958) from Grunbach took off from the
Cannstatt Wasen in his biplane.
He had built the world‘s first catapult aircraft.
1939 saw the first airplane powered by a liquid
fuel jet engine. It was also the first airplane with
a turbo-engine.
Hans Holzwarth (1877-1953) from Dornhan
built a „gas turbine with combustion chamber“.
This was the predecessor to his Holzwarth turbine,
which formed the technical basis for modern
passenger aircrafts.
The “first ascent“ of space
Men walk on the moon
The start of the 20th century saw the first forays
into space. Pioneers, discoverers, enthusiasts and
inventors were the people who gave the starting
impulse to a dynamic that is unequalled in human
history: Konstantin E. Ziolkowski (1857-
1935) formulated the Ideal Rocket Equation.
v(t)=v(g).1n(m(0) : m(t) )
Ideal Rocket Equation
The most basic laws of rocket propulsion
through the continual expulsion of propellant.
Calculation of the final velocity of the
rocket, taking into account exhaust velocity,
take-off weight and weight after consumption
of the propellant, as a logarithm from
full weight to empty weight. Defined by
Ziolkowski, Oberth, Goddard)
Robert Goddard (1882-1945) developed solid
fuel and later liquid fuel rockets. Hermann
Oberth (1894-1989) opened up new dimensions
with his books “By Rocket into Planetary Space“
and “Ways to Spaceflight“.
Eugen Sänger worked on a “space boat“ which
was intended to transport goods and people between
the Earth and orbit ... Parts of his work
were later used in the Space Shuttle.
And finally there was Wernher von Braun (1912-
1977), who played a decisive role in the Mercury,
Gemini and Apollo projects, and who is rightly
called the intellectual Father of the moon
rockets.
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