Hans-Werner Grosse

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Big Eta W.Nr.1 with the competition label HW

Hans-Werner Grosse (born November 29, 1922 in Swinoujscie ) is a German glider pilot and holder of more than 50 world records.

Hans-Werner Grosse was trained as a pilot at the age of 16. During the Second World War he flew torpedo missions in the Mediterranean and the North Atlantic . After the war he settled in Lübeck , where he worked in the textile trade.

Records

Grosse went down in gliding history with his record flight from Lübeck to Biarritz . On April 25, 1972, he flew this distance in an ASW 12 over 1,460.8 kilometers in eleven and a half hours. This world record still stands. In addition to a total of 50 gliding world records so far, a 2nd place at the 1970 World Championship is one of them.

Records followed at ASW 17 .

  • Target flight over 1231 km in 1974
  • Triangle flight over 1063 km in 1977
  • Triangle flight over 1306.9 km
  • Triangle flight over 1250 km at 133.24 km / h in 1980

In the winter of 1979/1980 the then most powerful two-seater, the SB 10 of the Braunschweig Academic Aviation Group , was shipped to Australia. Here the students flew four new records for two-seater with Hans-Werner Grosse:

  • longest triangular flight: 1112 km (old record 850 km)
  • fastest 1000 km triangular flight: 132.0 km / h (old record 122.4 km / h)
  • fastest 750 km triangular flight: 129.5 km / h
  • Largest destination flight with return to the starting point: 970 km (old record 870 km)
  • In 1988 he and his wife Karin set a world record over a 500 km FAI triangle with an average speed of 162 km / h in their ASH 25 .

For the record flights, Grosse always needed the best gliders of their time, such as the ASW 12, ASW 17 and ASH 25, in order to minimize the so-called "crank share" on cross-country flights as much as possible. That is why he was one of the initiators of the ETA project , which is still the most powerful glider in the world today. In 2000, the first aircraft with the competition registration HW was delivered to him. In May 2009 at the Lüsse Cup, at the age of 86, he reached third place in the open class.

Honorary member of the national gliding team

On his 75th birthday, Grosse was made an honorary member of the German FAI-class gliding team . The certificate for this so far unique appointment was presented by the then President of the International Gliding Commission and Director of the Gliding World Championships 1999 in Bayreuth, Peter Ryder, at the birthday party on November 29, 1997. Grosse is also an honorary member of the German Aero Club

His commitment to gliding is also demonstrated by the establishment of the “Youth Promotion Measures East” project. Grosse makes his high-performance ASH 25 glider available to young glider pilots in associations in the new federal states with the aim of enabling the young to fly with a modern device that is otherwise inaccessible to them.

Since it was not yet possible to break the record of 1972 within Europe after 40 years, Hans-Werner Grosse offered a prize for the pilot who managed to do so on European soil .

Grosse is the bearer of the silver laurel leaf awarded to him by the Federal President on May 14, 1971.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ From Lübeck to Biarritz - A glider pilot becomes a legend ( Memento from September 29, 2013 in the web archive archive.today )
  2. ^ Website of the Eta project with the initiators involved
  3. ^ Märkische Allgemeine. (No longer available online.) In: SAIL FLYING: At 86 in the world's largest glider - Lüsse Cup and Bundesliga. Märkische Verlags- und Druck-Gesellschaft mbH Potsdam, formerly in the original ; Retrieved July 5, 2009 .  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.maerkischeallgemeine.de  
  4. ↑ aerokurier issue 1/1998 ( memento of the original from June 9, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.aerokurier.rotor.com
  5. ^ Information given to the German Bundestag by the Federal Government on September 29, 1973 - Printed matter 7/1040 - Annex 3 (contains all awards of the Silver Laurel Leaf up to 1973), page 54
personal data
SURNAME Grosse, Hans-Werner
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German glider pilot
DATE OF BIRTH November 29, 1922
PLACE OF BIRTH Swinoujscie