Lilienthal

Lilienthal, “the Glider King,” was the first person to make repeated, successful flights on a glider.

The man who may truly be said to have given the airplane its first real start in life, was a German named Otto Lilienthal.

Lilienthal was not a rich man and it was many years before his opportunity to test his ideas with a real flying machine came.

For where the biplane has an intricate control system, Lilienthal relied entirely upon his own body to operate his glider.

The Wright brothers had read with fascination accounts of the gliding efforts of Lilienthal.

With the possible exception of such a man as Lilienthal, the Germans took slight personal interest in the subject of human flight.