Alfred von Pischof

Alfred von Pischof

Alfred Ritter von Pischof (born May 17, 1882 in Vienna ; † August 12, 1922 at Villacoublay in France) was an Austrian aviation pioneer.

Alfred von Pischof attended the Collège Chaptal and the École Spéciale des Travaux Publics in Paris from 1901 to 1907 . His field was mainly road and railroad construction, like his grandfather Matthias von Pischof , who was also one of the railroad specialists , before him . Since he was also enthusiastic about flight technology, he often visited the workshops of the two brothers Charles and Gabriel Voisin , who were also already building gliders .

In the spring of 1906 he built his first small airplane model himself and in the following summer he also flew in a glider himself. In 1907 he was able to build his first glider and his first motorized biplane .

At Louis Blériot he became commercial director. He learned to fly in Mourmelon-le-Grand near Châlons-sur-Marne . Pischof returned to Vienna in October 1909 and became a designer at Werner & Pfleiderer . At the Aero Club he passed his exam to obtain the aviation diploma , the pilot's license, with the serial number two on April 24, 1910 .

In this function he designed and built a monoplane, the so-called Pischof-Autoplan . This aircraft made its maiden flight in March 1910 at the Wiener Neustadt airfield over a distance of 400 meters. This aircraft was manufactured in series from February 1911 to May 1914 in the Austro-Hungarian Autoplan works .

He himself became the head of a plant near Kiev . After the beginning of the First World War he became works manager in Odessa of the Anatra aircraft factory , later manager of the aircraft park of General Wrangel .

After the First World War, he returned to France, where he only dealt with the construction of small aircraft. During the test flight of one of his models, he crashed on a flight from Villacoublay to Orly .

Awards

• Palm of the French Academy of Sciences
• at the Budapest flight meeting he received the 2nd prize for new designs
• Alfred-Pischof-Gasse in Vienna- Donaustadt and Wiener Neustadt

literature

• R.Keimel:  Pischof, Alfred von. In: Austrian Biographical Lexicon 1815–1950 (ÖBL). Volume 8, Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienna 1983, ISBN 3-7001-0187-2 , p. 98.
• Alfred Ritter von Pischof in Wiener Luftschiffer Zeitung from June 15, 1910
• Le nouvel Appareil de Pischof in L'Aéro-Méchanique from September 10, 1910
• The Pischof monoplane in aviation , 1912 page 929f.