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Otto Lilienthal Facts & Worksheets

Otto Lilienthal was considered as the first successful aviator in the history of mankind and the "flying man".

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Otto Lilienthal was considered as the first successful aviator in the history of mankind and the “flying man”. He was a German aviator who pioneered the most significant, well-documented, repeated, and successful flight with the use of gliders. Lilienthal founded the Science of Wing Aerodynamics. He also laid the backbone for the aerodynamics we employ today.

See the fact file below for more information on the Otto Lilienthal or alternatively, you can download our 23-page Otto Lilienthal worksheet pack to utilise within the classroom or home environment.

Key Facts & Information

BIOGRAPHY

  • Karl Wilhelm Otto Lilienthal was born on May 23, 1848, in Anklam, Prussia, a town in Germany. He and his brother, Gustav Lilienthal, shared an interest in flying. At an early age, they began observing the movements of birds to understand the mechanisms of flying.
  • When Lilienthal attended elementary school, the curriculum involved bird studies. He also studied mechanics at the Regional Technical School in Potsdam from 1864 to 1866.
  • Otto Lilienthal became a professional design engineer, and also continued his aerospace studies as a hobby and a passion. At the Berlin Trade School, Lilienthal did an on-the-job training program and three years at the Royal Technical Academy in Berlin.
  • In 1867, Lilienthal started doing experiments with aerodynamics and human flight while still pursuing a degree in engineering.
  • The results of his early experiments, which were published later, became helpful to others who were studying aerodynamics.

DURING AND AFTER THE WAR

  • When the Franco-Prussian War started, Lilienthal needed to enlist and serve in the Prussian military for one year. His studies and career were momentarily interrupted in 1870 because of the situation.
  • Lilienthal was included in the siege of Paris and got discharged from the military in 1871. After this, he became a mechanical engineer at the Weber Company in Berlin. In the following year, he became a construction engineer at the C. Hoppe machine factory. He remained with the two companies until 1880.
  • In 1881, he founded a boiler factory and based the designs of the machines on his own. He manufactured pulleys, sirens, and many more. He also pioneered a profit-sharing program for his factory workers in 1890.
  • In 1878, Lilienthal married Agnes Fischer and had four children. He also used his creativity as a father. He invented a set of stone building blocks called Anker-Steinbaukasten, for his children.

EARLY FLIGHT EXPERIMENTS

  • Lilienthal supported the glider-based theories of flight. With that, he focused on developing the shape of the wings for the designs for his flying machines. During his early experiments in 1874, his designs involved kites and other apparatuses.
  • For his passion for flying, Lilienthal and his brother joined the Aeronautical Society of Great Britain in 1873. Lilienthal’s first lecture involved his observations and theories about the mechanisms of a bird flying as the basis of aviation.
  • After a decade, he was allowed to join the Deutscher Verein Zur Forderung der Luftschiffahrt (German Club for Promotion of Airship Navigation), a Berlin-based navigation group.
  • In 1889, after eight years of developing his aircraft designs, he published a volume containing all the data he had gathered. It was entitled as “The Carrying Capacity of Arched Surfaces in Sailing Flight”. In the same year, he published a manual called “Bird Flight as a Basis of Aviation” that discussed the physics of flight.

STRIDES ON FLIEGEBERG

  • Lilienthal started to experiment with human passengers in his flying machines for the first time in 1890. With the help of his brother, the following year, Lilienthal built his first working glider and tested it at Derwitz/Kirlow.
  • After a few preliminary jumps, he made some design adjustments and shortened the wingspan. The hang glider achieved a flight of approximately 80 feet.
  • In 1892, Lilienthal improved and redesigned the glider to achieve even greater distance. In 1893, he built a hill called the Fliegeberg (flight mountain) at Lichterfelde.
  • He used the extended mound for his test flight as a launch. The glider from Fliegeberg exceeded over 250 feet. Also in the same year, he proposed his first motor-driven apparatus with flapping wings.
  • Lilienthal used wax, cloth, wire, and willow rods to construct his prototypes and modeled his flying crafts on birds and butterflies. His glider designs were composed of 13 square meters of mono-wing surface. From studying the birds’ flight, Lilienthal aimed to replicate the motions of flight of the seagull because it has extremely broad wing strokes and can fly on the sea breeze.
  • Lilienthal’s no. 11 model was the most often reproduced of his designs. It went into serial production in 1894.
  • Lilienthal’s goal in his experiments was to include the forces and motions involved in flight and to recreate his flights repeatedly with the same apparatus.
  • He wanted the display of control to not just be falling; instead guiding the movement of the aircraft while flying.

STRIDES ON FLIEGEBERG

  • He flew more than 2500 flights and recorded a maximum flight distance of 1,150 feet. He designed 18 different gliders, 15 monoplanes, and three biplanes. All of his designs were controlled by the weight distribution of the passenger using the aircraft.
  • In 1896, he and his brother built a motorized biplane with adjustable wingtips that were powered by carbonic acid.

FROM JUMPING TO FLIGHT

  • Lilienthal had begun exploring the issues of wing stroke by the time of his death. In the opening paragraph of his article “Our Teachers in Sailing Flight”, he talked about his belief that learning to glide was the natural forerunner to learning to fly.
  • His notion “from jump to flight” became an inspiration for aviation pioneers such as Orville and Wilbur Wright.
  • Lilienthal’s two original flying machines survived into the 21st century. His “no. 11” gliders are in the National Space and Air Museum at the Smithsonian Institute. His “little biplane” also survived.
  • Otto Lilienthal died from the injuries he got during one of his flying experiments.

Otto Lilienthal Worksheets

This is a fantastic bundle which includes everything you need to know about the Otto Lilienthal across 23 in-depth pages. These are ready-to-use Otto Lilienthal worksheets that are perfect for teaching students about Otto Lilienthal who was considered as the first successful aviator in the history of mankind and the “flying man”. He was a German aviator who pioneered the most significant, well-documented, repeated, and successful flight with the use of gliders. Lilienthal founded the Science of Wing Aerodynamics. He also laid the backbone for the aerodynamics we employ today.

Complete List Of Included Worksheets

  • Otto Lilienthal Facts
  • Lilienthal’s Profile
  • The Flying Man’s Timeline
  • Crossword Hang
  • Gliders: Now and Then
  • Your Glider!
  • Otto’s Filling
  • Lilienthal’s Questions
  • The Bird’s Mechanisms
  • Match the Wings!
  • Flying Man’s Message

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Use With Any Curriculum

These worksheets have been specifically designed for use with any international curriculum. You can use these worksheets as-is, or edit them using Google Slides to make them more specific to your own student ability levels and curriculum standards.

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