Birds of steel german planes12/12/2023 The trailing edges of the “wings” were reflexed, or curved upward. The seed itself lay in the axis of two winglike appendages, very near their leading edges. In January 1904, Wels and the Etrichs contacted Ahlborn, who sent them a Zanonia seed. He also claimed that the shape necessary to achieve auto-stability already existed, in the form of the seed of a Javanese vine, Zanonia macrocarpa (later reclassified as Alsomitra macrocarpa). Ahlborn concluded that practical flight required a self-stabilizing aircraft. Entitled Über die Stabilität der Flugapparate (On the Stability of Flying Machines), it criticized Lilienthal’s gliders, which depended on the pilot’s skill to stay in the air. The most influential aeronautical literature Etrich and Wels found was a small 50-page book published in March 1897 by a professor from Hamburg, Friedrich Ahlborn. Disappointed, Ignaz Etrich returned to managing his linen factory, but in 1903 he hired Franz Xaver Wels, a fencing teacher who built box kites and monoplane flying models, to assist his son with the gliders. During a test flight in 1901, it crashed on the runway, injuring Igo. It featured a welded steel-tube frame, a tall three-wheeled undercarriage and a pilot’s seat, but the glider proved heavy and unstable. Determined to continue his experiments, the Etrichs purchased two gliders in Berlin, but in 1898 they began work on their own design. In August 1896, Lilienthal was fatally injured in a glider accident. Etrich and Wels learned about the aerodynamic properties of the Zanonia seed from a small book by German professor Friedrich Ahlborn. Ignaz sent his son to school that year to learn the fundamentals of aviation, and then sent him to the Technical College in Leipzig. In 1895 the Etrichs, who owned linen mills in two Bohemian towns, became interested in the glider experiments of German aviator Otto Lilienthal. He received his father’s name, Ignaz Etrich, but came to be called Igo. The Etrich behind the Taube was born in Trutnov, Bohemia-then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire-on December 25, 1879. And in spite of its avian shape, the Taube’s evolutionary process literally grew from a seed. Despite its Teutonic association, however, the Taube design originated in Austria-Hungary. Indeed, by the end of 1914, Allied troops tended to use the term “Taube” for every German airplane they saw. Germany built and flew the most Tauben before and during the first year of World War I. In a time when aircraft were usually difficult and often dangerous to control, that alone made the Taube both popular and famous. Their most characteristic feature was reflexed or washed-out wingtips that curved upward at the trailing edge, endowing them with inherent stability. Most were monoplanes with wings braced by a combination of wires and a girder-like structure underneath the wings called a Brücke (“bridge”). Inspired by a Seed, an Austrian Designer Developed a Family of Airplanes-And the First Warplanes Closeīetween 19, the aviation scene in Central Europe was dominated by a series of graceful, birdlike airplanes collectively referred to as Tauben (literally, “pigeons,” though English-speakers preferred to call them “doves”).
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