Otto Lilienthal - In fiction

Aeronautical inventor and pioneer of gliders, born in Anklam, NE Germany. After graduating from the Berlin Trade Academy, he studied bird flight in order to build heavier-than-air flying machines resembling the birdman designs of Leonardo da Vinci. He made hundreds of short flights in his gliders, but crashed to his death near Berlin.

Otto Lilienthal (23 May 1848 – 10 August 1896), the German "Glider King", was a pioneer of human aviation. He was the first person to make repeated successful short flights in a fixed-wing heavier-than-air glider, following an experimental approach to gliding first established earlier in the century by Sir George Cayley.

He made his glides from an artificial hill he built near Berlin and also from natural hills, especially in the Rhinow region.

While Lilienthal's lifelong pursuit was flight, he was also an inventor and devised a small engine that worked on a system of tubular boilers.

Lilienthal's greatest contribution was to the development of heavier-than-air flight. Working in conjunction with his brother Gustav, he made over 2000 flights in gliders of his design starting in 1891 with his first glider version, the Derwitzer, until his death in a gliding crash in 1896. Lilienthal did basic research in precisely describing the flight of birds, especially of storks, and used polar diagrams for describing the aerodynamics of their wings. Lilienthal helped to prove that heavier-than-air flight was practical without flapping wings, laying the groundwork for the Wright brothers a few years later to build the first successful powered aircraft.

Lilienthal suffered a number of crashes in his experiments, but his glider could only reach low speeds and altitudes. ("Sacrifices must be made!")

Lilienthal's work was well known to the Wright Brothers, and they credited him as a major inspiration for their decision to pursue manned flight.

In fiction

A fictional characterization of Lilienthal was resurrected as an evil clone in the Japanese Read or Die (2001) novels, anime, and manga. But to fly is everything. (Airplanes didn't exist in Lilienthal's lifetime;