Wilhelm Kress
From Biocrawler, the free encyclopedia.
Wilhelm Kress (* July 29th 1836 in Saint Petersburg; † February 24th 1913 in Vienna) was a pioneer in aviations and constructor of airplanes.
Life
Kress came to Vienna in 1873, where he developed the first modern delta-flying hang glider in 1877. This hang-glider was a major achievement for the time, where many engineers still struggled with "heavier than air"-developements of non-motorised airvehicles.
During the turn of the century he was one of the world-wide contestors for break-through motor airplane. In 1900 he developed the stick control for airplanes. His model aircraft was constructed for water takeoff and made a first successful attempt (it was not a controlled flight like the one of the Wright brothers in 1903, but more or less larger 'hops') in 1901 near Vienna. A controlled longer flight was not possible due to a heavy motor.
