| Terrence I. Murphy, e-mail, 05.02.2012 15:56 First, it's Soldenhoff, not Soldenhof.
Second, the picture is the Soldenhoff A5.
Alexander Soldenhoff obtained his first patent for a tailess aircraft in 1912. His first powered aircraft flew in 1927. He went on to make at least six more that I know of, with the last one BEING designated the S5. It was nwvwer flown.
The last Soldenhoff machine to fly was his A5, a design similar to its predecessors, but with a conventional tricycle gear and distinctive discs, or endplates, at the wing tips. These plates could be changed in the search for a more efficient aerodynamic design. The A5 apparently flew well. Soldenhoff and Riedeger set off together in the two-seater on an aerial tour of Europe. The combination of the accident-prone but determined Riedeger and the deaf artist /designer Soldenhoff in the open cockpits of their flimsy experimental aircraft hardly inspired confidence in the successful outcome of the trip. An instrument takeoff in dense fog followed by occasional blind flying in the clouds over the Swiss Alps using the rudimentary instruments of the day added to the spirit of adventure as the two departed on the first leg of their tour in September 1931 reply |
