Finally, 1896. This year in aviation history, Otto Lilienthal (who I mentioned a few pages back), crashes one of his many gliders on August 9th after being upset by a gust of wind. He breaks his back and passes away the following day on August 10th. Now it's easy to attribute the accident to primitive controls or lightweight design, but it's also easy to forget that we are all at the mercy of our environment. One such reminder of this is the 1985 crash of Delta 191, with a simple change in wind direction being enough to down a heavy, well-engineered Lockheed L-1011.
Lilienthal's work is among the most significant in the development of the aeroplane, paving the way for flight as we know it today. Our collective understanding of aerodynamics and principles of flight were making great strides by the time of his death. But despite his advancements, he remained humble enough to remind others that the work was far from over:
"At the end I want to ask you not to take my achievements for more than they are. Through the photographic pictures, where you can see me flying high above in the sky, one can get the impression that the problem is already solved. That is not at all the case. I have to admit that it will still take quite a lot of work to turn this simple gliding into a long-term human flight. The achievements so far are for human flight nothing more than the first insecure steps of a child meant to imitate the walk of men."
-Otto Lilienthal, at a lecture in 1894
While he likely had some idea of what was to come, he would never see the culmination of his research less than a decade later, when the Wright brothers made the first powered, controlled, heavier -than-air flight in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina (December 17, 1903). And with that 120 foot hop, we entered the era of the modern aeroplane.
I'm likely to miss 1903 due to such luxeries as "sleep," so this is a two in one. G'night.
