Robert Kronfeld

Robert Kronfeld ( born May 5, 1904 in Vienna, † February 12, 1948 at Lasham, United Kingdom after crash ) was an Austrian gliding pioneer.

Life

The son of the dental practitioner Robert Kronfeld (1874-1946) was the nephew of the doctor and writer Adolf Kronfeld and the botanist Ernst Moriz Kronfeld.

He was on 15 May 1929, the first man to put back more than 100 km in a glider. In memory of the first long-distance gliding in the world was established in 1990 by the home club at Hermann trail near Giant Beck, a memorial stone. In the years 1929/30, he scored several world records, distance ( 164.51 km ) and altitude records (up to 2589 m) with the machines " Vienna " and " Austria".

He designed the kronfeldsche car winch for flight towing tests, undertook in 1929 the 1st Mountain Gliding ( Rax ), organized large-scale flight days and crossed the first glider in 1931 the English Channel in both directions: it started on June 20, 1931 by 19 clock in Boulogne -sur -Mer and landed the castle of Dover. From there he started to 21 clock of the same day for the return flight and landed back at Boulogne -sur -Mer ( St. Inglevert ). Due to his Jewish origins, he emigrated to England in 1933, in 1939 the British citizenship. During World War II he put himself at the service of the Royal Air Force, where he rose to the rank of major in the squadron leader.

On 12 February 1948, he lifted a hull -less glider from a test flight over southern England. The plane was still immature and came shortly after release into a tailspin, overturned and fell from 5000 meters above sea level near the village of Lasham from. Also on board was an observer who was able to escape by parachute. Kronfeld himself died in the rubble of the General Aircraft GAL.56.

His gliders were:

Honors

1930 Kronfeld was the winner of the Hindenburg Cup for gliding.

In Detmold, Fulda and Oerlinghausen one street was named after him. The municipal council of Vienna decided on September 2, 1959 to name a street in Liesing ( 23rd district ) after him.

In his honor is awarded by the gliding school Oerlinghausen each year to the " Kronfeld Competition " along the route of the studies pursued by him on May 15, 1929 first gliding over more than 100 km.