Wolfram Kurt Erhard Hirth (28 February 1900 – 25 July 1959) was a German

gliding Gliding is a recreational activity and competitive air sport in which pilots fly unpowered aircraft known as gliders or sailplanes using naturally occurring currents of rising air in the atmosphere to remain airborne. The word ''soaring'' is al ...

pioneer and

sailplane A glider or sailplane is a type of glider aircraft used in the leisure activity and sport of gliding (also called soaring). This unpowered aircraft can use naturally occurring currents of rising air in the atmosphere to gain altitude. Sailplan ...

designer. He was a co-founder of

Schempp-Hirth Schempp-Hirth Flugzeugbau GmbH is a glider manufacturer based in Kirchheim unter Teck, Germany. History Martin Schempp founded his own company in Göppingen in 1935, with the assistance of Wolf Hirth. The company was initially called "Sportfl ...

, still a renowned

glider Glider may refer to: Aircraft and transport Aircraft * Glider (aircraft), heavier-than-air aircraft primarily intended for unpowered flight ** Glider (sailplane), a rigid-winged glider aircraft with an undercarriage, used in the sport of glidin ...

manufacturer.Segelflugbildkalendar 2011 Hirth was born in

Stuttgart Stuttgart (; Swabian: ; ) is the capital and largest city of the German state of Baden-Württemberg. It is located on the Neckar river in a fertile valley known as the ''Stuttgarter Kessel'' (Stuttgart Cauldron) and lies an hour from the ...

, the son of an engineer and tool-maker. He was the younger brother of

Hellmuth Hellmuth is both a masculine German given name and a surname. Notable people with the name include: Given name: * Hellmuth Heye (1895–1970), German admiral and politician * Hellmuth Hirth (1886–1938), German engineer who founded engine manufac ...

, who founded the famous

Hirth Hirth Engines GmbH is an engine manufacturer based in Benningen, Germany. It is currently a part of the UMS Aero Group. Hirth began manufacturing aero engines in the 1920s, was taken over by Heinkel in WWII to develop the Heinkel-Hirth jet en ...

aircraft engine An aircraft engine, often referred to as an aero engine, is the power component of an aircraft propulsion system. Most aircraft engines are either piston engines or gas turbines, although a few have been rocket powered and in recent years many ...

manufacturing company.

Early years

As a young man, Hirth took up gliding and was soon drawn to the

Wasserkuppe The is a mountain within the German state of Hesse. It is a large plateau formation at an elevation of and is the highest peak in the Rhön Mountains. Great advances in sailplane development took place on the mountain during the interwar pe ...

, then the focus of the German gliding movement, earning his pilot's licence in 1920. In 1924, Hirth lost a leg after a

motorcycle A motorcycle (motorbike, bike, or trike (if three-wheeled)) is a two or three-wheeled motor vehicle steered by a handlebar. Motorcycle design varies greatly to suit a range of different purposes: long-distance travel, commuting, cruising ...

accident. From then on, he would fly while wearing a wooden prosthesis.Schempp-Hirth web-site - Accessed 10 March 2011
/ref> He had the

fibula The fibula or calf bone is a leg bone on the lateral side of the tibia, to which it is connected above and below. It is the smaller of the two bones and, in proportion to its length, the most slender of all the long bones. Its upper extremity i ...

from his amputated leg fashioned into a cigarette holder In 1928, he graduated from the Technical

University of Stuttgart The University of Stuttgart (german: Universität Stuttgart) is a leading research university located in Stuttgart, Germany. It was founded in 1829 and is organized into 10 faculties. It is one of the oldest technical universities in Germany wit ...

with a diploma in engineering and began to focus on aircraft construction. Over the next decade, he would also tour the world, promoting gliding throughout

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

, the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the southe ...

, and

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring countri ...

. On 10 March 1931 he gave a demonstration of glider aerobatics over New York City. On one of these publicity trips, he suffered major injuries in a crash in

Hungary Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia a ...

, requiring a hospital stay of four months. He and

Robert Kronfeld Squadron Leader Robert Kronfeld, AFC (5 May 1904 – 12 February 1948) was an Austrian-born gliding champion and sailplane designer of the 1920s and 30s. He became a British subject and an RAF test pilot. He was killed testing a glider in 1948 ...

were the first pilots to gain the Silver C badge. He was the chief flying instructor at the Grünau Gliding School in the

Giant Mountains The Giant Mountains, Krkonoše or Karkonosze (Czech: , Polish: , german: Riesengebirge) are a mountain range located in the north of the Czech Republic and the south-west of Poland, part of the Sudetes mountain system (part of the Bohemian Massi ...

, then in Germany. In 1933, he became the Head of the new Gliding School in

Hornberg Hornberg is a town in the Ortenaukreis, in western Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is situated in the Black Forest, 35 km southeast of Offenburg, and 25 km northwest of Villingen-Schwenningen. Sons and daughters of the town * ( ...

.Reitsch, Hanna (2009). ''The Sky My Kingdom: Memoirs of the Famous German World War II Test Pilot''. Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania: Casemate Publishers. Later in the year, he became the first to correctly identify the phenomenon of wave lift, the highest form of lift source available to soaring pilots. In Jan. 1934, he joined Professor Georgii's South America expedition, along with

Peter Riedel Peter Riedel (August 1905 – November 6, 1998) was a German gliding champion, and was Air Attaché for the Nazism, Nazi government in Washington, D.C., before and during World War II. Between 1977 and 1985 he published the definitive history ...

Hanna Reitsch Hanna Reitsch (29 March 1912 – 24 August 1979) was a German aviator and test pilot. Along with Melitta von Stauffenberg, she flight tested many of Germany's new aircraft during World War II and received many honors. Reitsch was amon ...

, and

Heini Dittmar Heini Dittmar (Born March 30, 1912, Bad Kissingen, Unterfranken, Germany – Died April 28, 1960 near Mülheim an der Ruhr, West Germany) was a record-breaking German glider pilot. Inspired by the example of his glider flying brother Edgar, Di ...

, to study thermal conditions, with his sailplane "Moatzagotl". While in Argentina, Wolf set a record of seventy-six successive loops. Wolf Hirth also took part in International Championships of Touring Aircraft

Challenge 1929 The Challenge 1929 was the first FAI International Tourist Plane Contest (french: Challenge International de Tourisme), that took place between August 4 and August 16, 1929 in Paris, France. Four Challenges, from 1929 to 1934, were major aviation ...

Challenge 1932 The Challenge 1932 was the third FAI International Tourist Plane Competition (french: Challenge International de Tourisme), that took place between 12 and August 28, 1932 in Berlin, Germany. The four Challenges, from 1929 to 1934, were major aviat ...

(6th place) and Challenge 1934 (13th place). After some time in the USA he returned to Germany in 1934 because of US economic depression.

Glider company

With the assistance of Wolf Hirth,

Martin Schempp Introduction Martin Schempp (23 March 1905 - 9 July 1984) was a glider pilot and founder of Schempp-Hirth, a major manufacturer of gliders. First years Martin Schempp was born in Stuttgart. After completing his commercial education, he helped ...

founded his own company in Göppingen in 1935: "Sportflugzeugbau Göppingen Martin Schempp". In 1938, Wolf Hirth, mainly responsible for the design work, officially became a partner in the company, which then took on the new name "Sportflugzeugbau

". The company relocated to Kirchheim-Teck the same year. The company first manufactured a small training glider, the Göppingen Gö 1, intended to rival the

Grunau Baby The Schneider Grunau Baby was a single-seat sailplane first built in Germany in 1931, with some 6,000 examples constructed in some 20 countries. It was relatively easy to build from plans, it flew well, and the aircraft was strong enough to han ...

. The company's first real success, however, was the Gö 3 Minimoa, a distinctive aircraft with an elegant

gull wing The gull wing is an aircraft wing configuration, known also as ''Pulaski wings'', with a prominent bend in the wing inner section towards the wing root. Its name is derived from the seabirds which it resembles. Numerous aircraft have incorpora ...

design that was used to break several world records and win championships around the world. Hirth continued to direct the firm throughout

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

. In 1940 the company began manufacturing assembly parts for

Messerschmitt Me 323 The Messerschmitt Me 323 ''Gigant'' ("Giant") was a German military transport aircraft of World War II. It was a powered variant of the Me 321 military glider and was the largest land-based transport aircraft to fly during the war. A total of 21 ...

and Me 109 and other aircraft. From 1945 the company made furniture and other wooden components for industry until glider production could begin again in 1951. He was elected President of the German Aero-Club in 1956.

Death

Hirth had a heart attack while flying his Vogt Lo-100 aerobatic glider in 1959 and died in the subsequent crash. ''Handbuch des Segelfliegens'' was published posthumously in 1963.Hirth, W., 1963, Handbuch Des Segelfliegens, Stuttgart: Franckh'sche Verlangshandlung, W. Keller & Co.

Honours

In many municipalities of Baden-Württemberg roads were named after Wolf Hirth. In Bartholomä, Bettringen, Böblingen, Ditzingen, Leinzell, Leonberg, Kirchheim/Teck and Schramberg there is a Wolf-Hirth-Straße. Outside of Baden-Württemberg, there is a Wolf-Hirth-Straße in Gersfeld (Rhön), and a Hirthstraße in Kiel-Holtenau.Hans-G. Hilscher, Dietrich Bleihöfer: ''Kieler Straßenlexikon.'' Fortgeführt seit 2005 durch das Amt für Bauordnung, Vermessung und Geoinformation der Landeshauptstadt Kiel, Stand: Februar 2017 (Suchbegriff hier eingeben
kiel.de
.

Literature

* Jörg Baldenhofer (Hrsg.): ''Schwäbische Tüftler und Erfinder.'' DRW-Verlag, Stuttgart 1986, . * * Stefan Blumenthal: ''Grüße aus der Luft. 100 Jahre Luftfahrt auf alten Postkarten.'' Motorbuch-Verlag, Stuttgart 1991, . * Stefan Blumenthal: ''Albert Hirth und seine Söhne Hellmuth und Wolf: eine schwäbische Erfinderfamilie.'' In: Jörg Baldenhofer (Hrsg.): ''Schwäbische Tüftler und Erfinder.'' DRW-Verlag, Stuttgart 1986, , S. 112-121. * Lisa Heiss: ''Erfinder, Rennfahrer, Flieger. Hirth. Vater. Hellmuth Wolf.'' Verlag Reinhold A. Müller, Stuttgart 1949.

References

External links

Lo-150 aerobatic glider
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Hirth, Wolf 1900 births 1959 deaths German aviators Glider pilots German aerospace engineers Businesspeople from Stuttgart People from the Kingdom of Württemberg University of Stuttgart alumni Aviators killed in aviation accidents or incidents Lilienthal Gliding Medal recipients Aerobatic record holders Glider flight record holders German aviation record holders Victims of aviation accidents or incidents in 1959 Engineers from Stuttgart