TEN YEARS' GLIDING AND SOARING IN GERMANY ^ 



By I'BOF. De. Wai.tts Geoeoii 

 Darmstadt, (icrmany 



[With 10 plates] 



We are looking back on 10 years of development and on an un- 

 broken series of 10 gliding competitions held at the Wasserkuppe 

 in the Rhoen, since 1920. The organization has not only maintained 

 its range of activities all these years but has largely extended it, and 

 in this way has given the best proof of its vitality and purpose. In 

 the first decade, now completed, successes have been achieved such 

 as few foresaw, and the cause may be sought in the spirit of close 

 cooperation with which the sportsman strove to avail himself of 

 the flying possibilities opened up by the scientist. 



This union of sport and science is in the true traditions of German 

 gliding since its revival in 1920. At Frankfurt in that year, Oskar 

 Ursinus directed the air-minded members of the younger generation 

 toward gliding as a substitute for power flight of which they were 

 perforce deprived ; but he had the progress of aeronautical science 

 at least as nmch at heart as the interest of the sport. He desired to 

 direct aeronautical investigation along a new path, and to free it 

 from the restricted view that progress was bound up with power 

 flight. "Were it possible to develop gliders carrying appreciable 

 loads, they woidd serve as prototypes for light airplanes, without 

 losing sight of more general sporting possibilities. The evolution 

 of the light sporting airplane from the glider was his technical 

 objective. His sporting aim was to offer keen youngsters a chance 

 of flying at no great financial outlay by giving their time freely to 

 constructing gliders. In the course of their purely sporting activi- 

 ties they would develop a sound team spirit and would find a stimulus 

 to technical and scientific work. 



On his initiative the first gliding coni])etition at the Wnsserlnippe 

 in the Rhoen was held in August, 1920. In spite of initial difriculties 

 a new gliding record of 2 minutes 22 seconds, and of 1,830 meters, 

 was made by W. Klemperer, whose design (pi. 1, fig. 1) first 



• Lecture (lollvprcd before the Royiil Acioniiutlcal Society, Loiulon, on Kcb. 10, 1030. 

 Itepriuted by perailbBiun of tbe society. 



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