Ewald Rohlfs

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Ewald Rohlfs (born March 23, 1911 in Danzig ; † July 29, 1984 in Bremen ) was a German one-flyer and test pilot . Appointed flight captain in 1944, after the war he became a member of the traditional group of old eagles (TGAA).

Life

His name is closely linked to the development of the helicopter in Germany. The designer Henrich Focke had chosen him to fly in and test the Focke-Wulf Fw 61 helicopter he had built . Rohlfs, who joined the company on May 1, 1935, carried out the first flight on June 26, 1936, but it only lasted 28 seconds. A year later, Rohlfs stayed in the air for over an hour and covered a distance of 16.4 km. In June 1937 he brought all world records to Germany with the two helicopters that were now available , with a duration of 1 hour 20 minutes, an altitude of 2440 m, a speed of 122.5 km / h and a distance of 80.6 km in a closed circle. Before that, on May 10, 1937, he had switched off the engine at a height of about 400 m and still landed safely in autorotation , with which he had proven the functionality of this important facility. When Focke separated from his old company soon afterwards and founded a new one ( Focke-Achgelis ), Rohlfs stayed behind and was then mainly busy with flying in and testing the Fw 190 . He also belonged to the factory security squadron, first with Fw 187 , later with Fw 190. The other test flights with the Fw 61 at the new company were then undertaken by Carl Bode and Hanna Reitsch .

After the war Rohlfs was with Focke from 1954 to 1957 in Brazil at the center of aviation there (Centro tecnico de Aeronautica), where a helicopter was also to be developed. Then both went to Borgward in Bremen, where they worked on the development of the Kolibri I helicopter project . Rohlfs was able to make the first flight with it on July 1, 1958. The testing was protracted so that the desired type certification no longer came about because the company went bankrupt. Rohlfs now switched to Henschel in Kassel, where he became chief pilot and flight operations manager. In 1977 he retired and returned to Bremen, where he spent the last years of his life.

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