#19 - Otto Lilienthal
I just finished reading through Otto Lilienthal’s Birdflight As The Basis Of Aviation and felt I had to share. If the Wright brothers were the fathers of modern aviation, Otto Lillienthal was the grandfather. I won’t do a full biography since you can read his Wikipedia page as well as I can. But I’ll pull out a few highlights from his book and his life -- maybe you’ll better understand why I have a picture of him in his glider as the logo of this publication (if you can call it that).
Lilienthal drew inspiration for his gliders from Nature’s designs, by studying birds and birdflight. From those studies, he made huge strides in the development of early aerodynamics and was the one of the first to create the shape we now recognize as an airfoil, a development that directly informed and inspired the Wright brothers. Lilienthal and his brother built sixteen glider designs, making over 2,000 flights with them. He died following an accident with one of the gliders, but not before (allegedly) heroically exclaiming, “Sacrifices must be made!”
A gutsy, creative, intelligent engineer and, as I wanted to show you, one whose artistic sense matched his scientific one. Here’s the first paragraph of Birdflight As The Basis Of Aviation:
“With each advent of spring, when the air is alive with innumerable happy creatures; when the storks on their arrival at their old northern resorts fold up the imposing flying apparatus which has carried them thousands of miles, lay back their heads and announce their arrival by joyously rattling their beaks; when the swallows have made their entry and hurry through our streets and pass our windows in sailing flight; with the lark appears as a dot in the ether and manifests its joy of existence by its song; then a certain desire takes possession of man. He longs to soar upward and to glide, free as a bird, over smiling fields, leafy woods and mirror-like lakes, and so enjoy the varying landscape as fully as only a bird can do.”
Questions? Comments? Corrections? I’d love to have your input. If you want to get a hold of me individually, you can respond to this email or find me on LinkedIn.
Drawing exercise #9. If you missed it, here’s why I’m learning to draw.