KRONFELD ON GLIDING AND SOARING.pdf - Lakes Gliding Club

26 KRONFELD ON GLIDING & SOARING
them till something better should turn up ; and in this
manner he made some two thousand flights, in a few cases
landing at a point more than a thousand feet distant from
his place of starting. Other men, no doubt, long before
had thought of trying such a plan. Lilienthal not only
thought but acted ; and, in so doing, probably made the
greatest contribution to the solution of the flying problem
that has ever been made by any one man. He demonstrated
the feasibility of actual practice in the air, without which
success is impossible. Herr Lilienthal was followed by
Mr. Pilcher, a young English engineer, and by Mr. Chanute.
A few others have built machines, but nearly all that is of
real value is due to the experiments conducted under the
direction of the three men just mentioned."
Wilbur Wright and his brother Orville certainly achieved
world-renowned success, and we must not omit to record
here the names of Herring in America, Ferber in France,
and Etrich and Wels in Austria.
Otto Lilienthal was born on May 23rd, 1848, in a small
German town, his family being descendants of old Swedish
ancestors that had settled in Germany before the Reformation.
His father was a tradesman ; after his early death a
prudent mother brought up her children carefully and
contrived by dint of hard work and strict economy to give
both sons a high-school education. Otto soon showed
technical talent, but, as is the case with many great men,
his progress at school was mediocre. His special gift,
however, began to develop in his fourteenth year, when he
made himself a pair of artificial wings. It was a dangerous
experiment. Though fearless of the risks he took in the
air, he had hard work to face the teachers, who could not
understand what they termed his " senseless whims/' and
the ridicule of fellow-pupils who loved an opportunity to
jeer at him. Only in the privacy of moonlit nights could
he find opportunity to test his wings and essay the first
leaps into the air.
At sixteen, Lilienthal entered the Technical School at
Potsdam, where he studied to become a sculptor. He
was a diligent and eager pupil at first, but soon found his
studies too unpractical for his liking and undertook voluntary