Max cone

This article relates to the Max Kegel glider pilot. The social democrat and poet of the same name can be found under Max Kegel (poet) .

Max Kegel (born June 1, 1894 - † April 7, 1983 ) was a German glider pioneer .

Life

Max Kegel became famous when he accidentally got caught in a thunderstorm at the 7th " Rhön Competition " for glider pilots on August 12, 1926 . After taking off from the Wasserkuppe , he (involuntarily) gained about 2,000 m in altitude through updrafts in the cloud, so that he could fly to Meiningen . The flight distance was 55.2 km - that was a world record. He was then nicknamed Gewittermaxe . The flight took place on the occasion of the Rhön competition. Since Kegel was the last to take off, he did not want to land immediately despite the approaching storm front. When he felt a strong updraft, he wanted to use it for a spontaneous cross-country flight. He was pulled into the storm cloud.

Kegel's flight attracted a great deal of attention, but surprisingly remained without any impact on the development of gliding. Even when the turning pointer was available, none of the leading glider pilots had the idea to give up the slope flight and look specifically for updrafts under clouds. It was only two years later, in 1928, that Robert Kronfeld began to consciously use the thermals as a source of updraft and thus to detach himself from the slope wind.

Max Kegel had been stationed as an air policeman on the Wasserkuppe to monitor aviation and had enjoyed gliding there. He had received this position as an air policeman because he was a trained motorized pilot. And it was probably thanks to his experience as a motorized pilot - along with good luck - that this cloud flight without any blind flight instruments did not end in a catastrophe.

Legend

A popular legend tells that Kegel carried out his legendary flight because, despite the bad weather, he wanted to show his superiors that gliding was also interesting for the police. This legend is not supported by anything, his flight was a completely normal flight in the annual Rhön competition.

literature

• Josef Laschütza: Thunderstorm flight of the glider pilot Max Kegel on the Wasserkuppe in 1926 . In: Rhönwacht , ISSN  0936-1723 , year 2006, no . 4, p. 218.

Web links

• portrait

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Werner Helmes : And they stayed in the air for days. In: Die Rhön (= Merian , Jg. 17 (1964), No. 4), pp. 53–54 and 95, here p. 95.
2. ↑ Peter Riedel: Erlebte Rhöngeschichte , Vol. 1: Start in the Wind: 1911–1926 . Edited by Jochen von Kalckreuth . Motorbuch-Verlag, Stuttgart 1977.