Alexander Leo Soldenhoff

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Alexander Leo Soldenhoff (born September 13, 1882 in Geneva , † November 9, 1951 in Zurich ) was a Swiss painter and aircraft designer . His father Alexander Jules Jakob Joseph Soldenhoff (1849–1902) was a theater painter and came from Poland . The mother came from Provence .

Life

Alexander Leo Soldenhoff attended the arts and crafts school in Zurich , where he was a student of Hermann Gattiker. At the same time, Rudolf Koller introduced Soldenhoff to painting technique for six years; he remained his father's advisor until his death (1905). In 1904 A. Soldenhoff went to Paris for three months . Delacroix, Manet , Rubens and Rembrandt in particular joined the example of Segantini , who had a strong influence at the time . From December 1905 to 1907 Soldenhoff was a drawing teacher at the higher city school as a drawing teacher in Glarus . Successful exhibitions in Munich and Frankfurt encouraged him to move to Frankfurt in 1907, where he worked from 1908 to 1912 as a set designer and artistic advisor at the Schauspielhaus and later also at the Städtische Oper.

Share certificate of the Soldenhoff aircraft consortium dated October 1, 1928; To finance the aircraft development, this consortium was founded with the aim of founding a stock company.

Even before 1907, Soldenhoff had experimented with self-made aircraft models in Switzerland. His main goal was to develop a people's tailless airplane. In 1912 he applied for his first patent for such an airplane, but it wasn't until 1927 that he built his first airplane with a motor in Zurich. A photograph of the strange motorless tandem double-decker "Bülbül 1" on the Rhön is also known. The upper wing was straight and attached to struts above the fuselage. At the rear end of the short fuselage nacelle, the second, heavily swept wing in low-wing construction was attached, which had elevons. The lower wing was already similar to that of the LF 5.

In 1927 he moved to Berlin, where he began building the tailless monoplane LF 5 in 1928, which was completed in Düsseldorf in 1929 by the well-known glider pilot Gottlob Espenlaub . He then tested the LF 5, which had a span of 10 meters and a length of a good five meters. The drive consisted of a 32 hp Bristol Cherub III.

Soldenhoff then received the patent in Germany for controlling tailless arrow planes . The A3, which was built afterwards, was a further development, in which expandable rudders were attached approximately in the area of ​​the half-span. Soldenhoff founded his own company in September 1930 in Böblingen with the "Soldenhoff-Aero-Gesellschaft" (SAG). After moving to Böblingen, he built the fourth A 4 tailless aircraft.

After the A 3 crashed, the tests were stopped. But Soldenhoff did not give up. The A5 ( aircraft registration D-2156) was completed in 1931 . On September 27, 1931, the pilot Riediger took off from Böblingen to Dübendorf and from there to Lucerne . When the pilot flew straight back to Böblingen, this meant a world record for tailless light aircraft. However, after no tangible commercial success until 1932, the donors withdrew and the SAG dissolved. He then returned to Switzerland, where he built another monoplane. Today the only surviving Soldenhoff aircraft No. 6 hangs in the Verkehrshaus in Lucerne.

He found his final resting place in the Rehalp cemetery in Zurich . His tomb was lifted

Picture gallery

  • LF5 1929

  • A3 1930

  • A5 1931

literature

Web links

Commons : Alexander Leo Soldenhoff  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Soldenhoff, Alexander Leo
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Soldenhoff, Alexander Leo von (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss painter and aircraft designer
DATE OF BIRTH September 13, 1882
PLACE OF BIRTH Geneva
DATE OF DEATH November 9, 1951
Place of death Zurich