Erich Offermann

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Erich Offermann (born July 9, 1885 in Aachen , † July 26, 1930 in Lyon ) was a German glider designer , flight engineer and flight pioneer .

Life

He came from a respected Monschau and Imgenbroich clothmaker dynasty (see also Tuchmacherhof Offermann ). He completed his studies and his assistantship at RWTH Aachen . When he started his aviation career , he was supported by Otto Honigmann, son of Moritz Honigmann , because his family was not interested in this career path.

His first flight attempts took place in 1907 with a self-built double-decker glider near Seffent , Aachen. Jacob Goedecker's model flight experiments on Lousberg inspired him to build manned gliders . Due to the better wind conditions, he was drawn to the Eifel , where from 1909 to 1910 he had a 200-meter-long mound of earth built near Mützenich . There was also a hall for the flying machines on the site . The machines were started using a catapult , which consisted of a shaft, a 300 kg weight and a pulley .

The flight attempts of motorless gliding took place between 1910 and 1912. He improved the motorless gliding, and planned the development of a motorized airplane with low drag. In his efforts he was supported by the Aachen professors Junkers and Reissner . Offermann is one of the most important pioneers of sailing at the beginning of the 20th century thanks to his aircraft designs, but also because of the launch technique using a catapult.

In the First World War he joined the armed forces as a volunteer . He was then a pilot of Feldflieger Department 30 (FFA 30) and later a pilot of Jagdstaffel 10 (Jasta 10) with the rank of lieutenant .

Offermann was an engineer. From one of his articles in the magazine Flugsport from 1925 it emerges that at least towards the end of the First World War he also worked as an acceptance pilot for the army administration. The yearbooks of the Scientific Society for Aviation Technology eV (WGF) founded in 1912 and the follow-up association Scientific Society for Aviation (WGL; from 1914), of which he was a member, show that he was head of the technical department of the Deutsche Luft-Reederei until 1920 . From 1919 to 1925 he also worked for the Junkers aircraft factory in Berlin . In the spring of 1920 in Argentina , for example, he was to explore the possibilities of founding a South American airline for Junkers , to which two F 13s were to be provided. Another aviation issue from 1925 shows that he also worked on aeronautical tasks at the institute of the Rhön-Rossitten-Gesellschaft , which was founded in 1925 and later became the German Research Institute for Gliding . In 1929 he was succeeded by Lieutenant Colonel a. D. Siegert German representative of the Daniel Guggenheim Fund .

From 1925 Offermann also took part in German and international flight competitions and sightseeing flights. While taking part in the European sightseeing flight in 1930 , he and his companion Erich Jerzembski fell fatally on July 26th when landing in Lyon in southern France when his Messerschmitt M23c collided with a high-voltage line.

Publications (selection)

  • Gliding flights from the years 1908 to 1912. In: Flugsport , No. 22, Frankfurt am Main 1920, pp. 492–501.
  • Technology and economics in air traffic with airplanes , 12 pages, in: Zeitschrift für Flugtechnik und Motorluftschiffahrt . 1921, no. 19 u. 20th
  • Procedure for precalculation of prime costs in aviation companies and characterization of proportional influences , in: Volume 7 of reports and treatises of the scientific society for aviation, 28 p., Verlag R. Oldenbourg, 1922
  • Beginnings of European aviation. In: Jahrbuch fur Luftverkehr 1924 , Munich 1924, pp. 1–13.
  • The flight without a motor. In: Deutsche Luftfahrt , Verlag Deutscher Wille, Berlin 1925.
  • Giant planes. In: Handbuch der Flugzeugkunde , Volume 4, Richard Carl Schmidt & Co., Berlin 1927

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Newspaper clipping Flugpionier ( memento of the original from January 12, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.muetzenich.net
  2. ↑ Peter Supf : The book of German flight history: Bd. 1 Vorzeit. Turning time. Werdezeit, Drei Brunnen, 1958, p. 240 [1]
  3. ↑ Rüdiger Haude: Grenzflug, political symbolism of aviation before the First World War, The example of Aachen, 2007, pp. 98-100 [2]
  4. ↑ Günter Brinkmann, Hans Zacher : The Evolution of Gliders, Bernard & Graefe, 1992, p. 20 [3]
  5. ↑ Peter Riedel: Start in the Wind: Erlebte Rhöngeschichte 1911-1926, Motorbuch, 1977, p. 51 [4]
  6. ^ Rüdiger Haude: Grenzflug Political symbolism of aviation before the First World War. The example of Aachen, Bohlau Verlag Cologne Weimar Vienna, 2007
  7. ^ Greg VanWyngarden: `` Richthofen's Circus': Jagdgeschwader. Vol. 16 of Aviation elite units , Osprey Publishing, 2004, ill. P. 19. ISBN 978-1-84176-726-0 . ( limited preview in Google Book search)
  8. ↑ Erich Offermann: Installation of a total fire extinguisher. In: Flugsport , No. 5, Frankfurt am Main 1925, p. 113. ( online )
  9. ↑ cf. on this, the history of the German Aerospace Society .
  10. ^ Yearbook of the Scientific Society for Aviation Technology. , 1913, p. 8. ( limited preview in Google book search).
  11. ^ Yearbook of the Scientific Aviation Society. , 1920, p. 8. ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  12. ↑ a b "Fliegerberg" as a new destination for hikers , Aachener Zeitung , July 12, 2011
  13. ↑ December 1922: Start of the first Junkers South America expedition , calendar sheet No. 40, Junkers, December 2010.
  14. ↑ Aviation. , No. 13/14, Frankfurt am Main 1925, p. 312. ( online )
  15. ↑ Flugsport , No. 8, Frankfurt am Main 1929, p. 159. ( online )
  16. ^ Deutsche Luftfahrt, Volume 34, Issue 4, Volume 35, Issue 4, 1930, pp. 111, 196 & 200 [5]
  17. ↑ ADAC Motorwelt No. 31, August 1, 1930, p. 19.
  18. ↑ The "Offermann Ente" from 1912 is mentioned in Günter Brinkmann, Hans Zacher : The Evolution of Gliders. Bernard & Graefe, 1992, p. 20. ( limited preview in Google book search)
personal data
SURNAME Offermann, Erich
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German sailplane designer, flight engineer and flight pioneer
DATE OF BIRTH July 9, 1885
PLACE OF BIRTH Aachen
DATE OF DEATH July 26, 1930
Place of death Lyon