Roloplan
The Roloplan is a kite designed by Richard Steiff .
After being fascinated z. For example , having followed Count Zeppelin's experiments in Friedrichshafen , Richard Steiff constructed his first collapsible, tailless fabric kite in 1908, which he was able to present to his aunt, Margarete Steiff , shortly before her death. In 1909 this kite was registered under the name Roloplan; it was a model with Tonkin supports and a fabric tube instead of a stabilizing surface. Steiff also secured the name Roloplan as a trademark for aircraft of all kinds; Although the first model "for sports and games" was launched, Steiff's kites were quickly used for other purposes. You could easily pull sledges and hold baskets with people in the air, and what was perhaps a more sensible and certainly more popular application: You could transport a camera so that for the first time aerial photos for "everyone" - before the First World War , a Roloplan cost between 10 and 33 marks - were possible. Richard Steiff developed a special tripod and a remote release that worked by means of a cable . For companies, however, the Roloplan was interesting as an advertising medium , and the air defense used it as a target for target practice.
Production times and production numbers of the individual kite sizes are listed in detail on a website from Rheine. However, no figures can be found in the Roloplan archive in Bremen.