Jakob Spalinger
Jakob Spalinger (born May 18, 1898 in Winterthur , † March 13, 1988 in Hergiswil ) was a Swiss engineer , sailplane designer and flight pioneer .
life and work
Spalinger built his first glider at the age of 12 and in 1911 he developed a hang glider with an 8 m wingspan . After finishing high school in Winterthur, Spalinger attended the technical center there from 1913. During his studies he built the S1 (Spalinger 1), the first flight of which took place in Dübendorf in 1919 .
In 1918 Spalinger joined the technical service of the central administration of the Swiss Federal Office for Military Airfields in Dübendorf . There he witnessed Oskar Bider's crash in 1919 . Initially, Spalinger worked in the electrical engineering department and then took on special tasks in aircraft assembly, the engine workshop, in the test bench and in material control. He was later entrusted with calculation, drawing and construction tasks, designed a two-seater observation aircraft, checked and appraised foreign aircraft during the Second World War and supervised the procurement of spare parts.
By 1945, Spalinger had constructed 27 basic types of gliders in 37 different designs, single-seat and two-seat with spans between 7 m and 17.7 m and often with gull wings reminiscent of birds' wings. A total of around 150 aircraft were built, some of them in Brazil , Peru and South Africa . Spalinger headed the design and drawing office for 20 years, was the closest employee of the head of the technical service and was also used for special tasks. At the end of 1959, he was retired as head of the military airfield management in Dübendorf.
In Switzerland, up to 1948, more gliders designed by Spalinger were made than by all other Swiss designers combined: A quarter of all gliders registered in Switzerland up to then came from Spalinger. The most successful was the S18 , of which at least 58 copies have been built since 1936. As part of his work for Swiss gliding, he led a. a. On behalf of the Aviation Office, the flight operations at the first glider camp on the Jungfraujoch in 1931 and was significantly involved in the introduction of aircraft towing in Switzerland.
Spalinger was also successful as a glider pilot. In 1933 he made the first three-hour flight in Switzerland. In 1937 in Olten he won all disciplines at the first Swiss gliding championship. In 1939 he successfully completed a target flight over a distance of 120 km.
Web links
- Max Jakob Spalinger In: German biography
- Jakob Spalinger in the history of gliding
Individual evidence
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Spalinger, Jakob |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Swiss engineer, sailplane designer and aviation pioneer |
| DATE OF BIRTH | May 18, 1898 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Winterthur |
| DATE OF DEATH | March 13, 1988 |
| Place of death | Hergiswil |