Igo Etrich
Ignaz "Igo" Etrich (December 25, 1879, Horní Staré Město, Trutnov, Bohemia – February 4, 1967, Salzburg, Austria), Austrian flight pioneer, pilot and fixed-wing aircraft developer.
Education
Igo went to school at Leipzig, where he came in contact with the works of Otto Lilienthal. His main interest was in aviation, the problems of bird flight. With his father, a factory-owner, he built a laboratory for developing aeroplanes. After the death of Lilienthal his father acquired some advanced gliders.
Aviation
Prof. Ahlborn had published a paper in 1897, in which he had described the flying seed of Zanonia macrocarpa.[1] Etrich and his co-worker Franz Xaver Wels designed an unmanned glider of similar form and flew it successfully in 1904. Attempts to add an engine failed, but a successful manned glider was flown in 1906.[2]
He also worked with Karl Illner.[citation needed]
The next stop of Igo Etrich was Vienna, where he had his second laboratory in the Wiener Prater at the Rotunde. In 1907 he built his Etrich I, the Praterspatz (Prater park Sparrow ) there. Due to the low power (24 hp) of the motor and the limited space for flying, the aircraft was unsuccessful. Further designs
In 1909 the first airfield of the Austro-Hungarian Empire was founded in Wiener Neustadt. Etrich rented two hangars (or aircraft-sheds, as they were called then) and continued to develop his design, the Taube (Dove). Meanwhile, his co-developer Franz Xaver Wels visited Paris to study the aircraft of the Wright Brothers and split with Etrich over the question of whether to build a monoplane or a biplane.
In 1910 his Etrich II, or Etrich Taube made its maiden flight. In an early flight, Etrich nearly broke his back when his Taube crashed. From then on, Karl Illner made all of Etrich's test flights. Etrich continued to refine the Taube so as to meet the specifications of the military, which included the requirement that an aircraft had to be able to land on a freshly plowed field.[3]
In 1912 he founded Etrich Fliegerwerke in Liebau (today Lubawka, Poland) and designed an aircraft with an enclosed cabin for the passengers, which he named Luft-Limousine.[4]
Later he moved to Germany, founding Brandenburgische Flugzeugwerke which would later become Hansa-Brandenburg after he sold it to Camillo Castiglioni in 1914. From Liebau he took his chief designer with him - Ernst Heinkel.
Another aircraft designer, Edmund Rumpler, modified the design of the Taube slightly, claimed to be the developer and refused to pay licensing fees to Etrich. With the advent of World War I, Etrich made the design for his Taube freely available and dropped his lawsuit.
After World War I, Etrich moved to Trautenau, now Trutnov, in the newly founded Czechoslovakia, and built the Sport-Taube.[5] It was claimed to be faster with its 40 hp engine than the Czechoslovak military planes of the time. The authorities claimed he built the plane for smuggling and impounded his plane. Igo Etrich was so disappointed, that he abandoned his aeronautical projects and dedicated himself to the production of textile machinery.[6]
Surviving aircraft
- The Etrich II can be seen at the "Technisches Museum" in Vienna, Austria.
- The Etrich Sport-Taube, a closed-cockpit monoplane, and the Wells/Etrich Zanonia glider are exhibited at the National Technical Museum in Prague.
Numismatics
Igo Etrich has recently been selected as a main motif for a euro collectors' coin, the Austrian Aviation commemorative coin, minted on February 28, 2007. This reverse side of the coin shows the “Etrich-Taube” as well as the “Zanonia” glider and a waving Igo Etrich sitting in the open cockpit of a plane.
See also
References
- ↑ Ernst Heinrich Hirschel, Horst Prem, Gero Madelung; Aeronautical Research in Germany: From Lilienthal until Today, 2004 (Springer edn 2012, p29)
- ↑ "The Evolution of the Etrich 'Taube'", Flight 12 February 1915, pages 106-108.[1]
- ↑ Igo Etrich: "Die Taube - Memoiren eines Luftfahrt Pioniers"
- ↑ Etrich Luft-Limousine / VII
- ↑ Etrich Sport-Taube Aircraft Pictures - Airliners.net
- ↑ Wiener Bezirkszeitung - Die Taube
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