Foil: 3 Panel: 4 Column: 2 Line: 27

Wall of Honor Level:
Air and Space Friend

Honored by:
Mrs. Mary E. Feather

Lajos Rotter-Remembering a legend, 1901-1983, Budapest, Hungary
Louis and Laszlo recall the achievements of their father, Lajos a century after his birth

SUMMER 2001 marked the 100th anniversary of the birth of Lajos Rotter, Hungary's leading gliding pioneer. He designed and personally supervised the building of his "super ships," with which he set national and world records in time, goal distance and altitude at the dawn of gliding's rapid development worldwide. His engineering genius and sporting achievements are remembered to this day, and his legend lives on.
Lajos Rotter was born in 1901 in Budapest and took a keen interest from an early age in flying. Even before reaching school age he was always looking for photographs about flying, in newspapers and magazines. He was barely seven when he built his own kites, and a year later he started building models of airplanes.
In 1909, Bleriot, following his famous cross-channel flight, visited Hungary and performed three demonstration flights. These had a lasting impact on the eight-year-old boy; he decided there and then to design and fly airplanes when he grew up. The event was etched so vividly in his mind that throughout his long life he could remember Bleriot's plane in all its detail, and the flying maneuvers he performed.
Lajos Rotter qualified as a mechanical engineer. At university he was instrumental in establishing its aero club. Aged 20, he designed his first glider; it had a 13-metre wingspan, a thick wing profile, and a dope-and-linen covering. Shortly afterwards, he designed a motorglider with the general features of a high-wing strutted glider with a tailplane, similar to the 1920 German Vampyr. It had an 18hp engine on a pod in front of the pilot, and it also had a wheel.
In 1922, at the age of 22, he set up the FEIRO Company (Feigle-Rotter) to design and make single-engined two-seater biplanes and four-seater monoplanes. Plans for one of his designs, the FEIRO I (Daru) were published in 1924; they apparently influenced the Spirit of St. Louis, the plane that Charles Lindbergh flew on his historic transatlantic flight. The FEIRO I's design specifications differed from the Spirit of St. Louis' by only 3/8", though the latter used a bigger engine.
From 1929 Lajos took a serious interest in regular gliding and by 1931 gained his "three seagulls"—the C Certificate. Soon after he set up Hungary's leading gliding club, in the hills surrounding Budapest (Harmas Hatar Hegy). It was to be the venue of his famous endurance flight of 1934 in a sailplane of his own design, the Karakan. He stayed aloft for 24 hours and 14 minutes—a national record and runner-up for the world record. In 1935 he set a national distance record in the Karakan, flying 275km—then the world's fourth longest flight. His national altitude record of 1,850m (6,069ft) in 1933, also in the Karakan, was one of the highest glider flights in the world at that time.
The Karakan, of plywood and wood, had a 20-metre wingspan, a wing area of 27.7m2 (298 sq. ft.) and a max take-off weight of 297kg (655 lb). It had wing stubs about 9 in. (23 cm) on each side of the fuselage with a perspex fairing enabling the pilot to check in flight that the connections remained secure. It was the star glider of the World Jamboree gliding convention, attended by 24,000 boy scouts from across the globe. Lajos proposed bringing the Jamboree to Hungary to promote gliding there and abroad. Its patron was the country's Prime Minister, Count Paul Teleki, and many international statesmen came, as well as Baden-Powell. The Karakan was flown and praised by leading pilots, including the Austrian Robert Kronfeld. It was an outstanding glider of its time and became an exhibit in the Hungarian Aviation and Transport Science Museum. During World War Two, the museum took a direct hit, which destroyed the glider.
As well as his flying achievements, Lajos Rotter promoted and helped develop motorless flight internationally, giving lectures on glider construction and gliding meteorology. ISTUS (the International Commission for the Study of Motorless Flights) was prompted by his work to meet in Budapest in 1936, where it awarded him the ISTUS Gold Ring in recognition of his outstanding achievements in and out of the cockpit. Only four of these were ever given. It was to the credit of ISTUS that the International Olympic Committee agreed to introduce gliding at the 1936 Olympic Games, with a view to including it subsequently among officially-recognized Olympic sports.
The Hungarian Aero Union invited Lajos to represent Hungary at Berlin in 1936. He felt that despite the Karakan's remarkable achievements a better glider was needed. So he was commissioned to design (and supervise the building of) another "super glider" and the Nemere, named after a Hungarian Fohn wind, was born. It was based on the idea that the speed and gliding performance of sailplanes ought to be increased and the range of speed and of sinking speed should be extended by making the ailerons adjustable in flight, both for flying in weak thermals and for fast flight with a good glide angle. Also, the cockpit had to be roomy for comfort on long and difficult flights, to allow the pilot easy handling of maps. So span, weight and wing loading were increased.
The Nemere had a full cantilever shoulder wing design and was calculated throughout with a safety factor of 12. The rudder was balanced and the differential elevator was of pendulum type. The elevator, ailerons and all their controls worked on ball bearings. The wheels were detachable; there was a tail release for bungy launches and a Rotter type quick release at the nose.
The Nemere was a truly super sailplane and gained its place in gliding's almanac. On August 12,1936, despite unfavorable meteorological reports, Rotter launched the Nemere from Ransdorf, next to the Berlin Olympic Village, on a record-breaking pre-declared distance flight to Kiel. His fastest speed was 87mph (140 km/h) and he went as high as 5,680ft on the flight of 203 miles (336.5km). He completed it in three and a half hours, which was the best time at the Olympics and a world record, too. It was the longest flight in Germany that year, and a substantial increase on the Hungarian national record of 170.5 miles (274.4km). International acclamation resulted and it was reported in The Sailplane and Glider, this magazine's forerunner, in December 1936 (p. 253).
Following the war, Lajos Rotter's Nemere was proclaimed reactionary and imperialist, along with its designer, who was quickly humiliated for his antipathy to the Russian-style Communism imposed on his country. As a result, in 1946 the Communist leadership destroyed his famous sailplane, barred him from flying and forced him out of his job. He was also stripped of his position as joint Chairman of the Hungarian National Flying Club. Despite that, his interest in flying never diminished. He regularly went to see gliding at Harmas Ha tar Hegy, where he was always welcomed and respected by the old and the new generations of glider pilots.
In 1969, visiting his son Louis in the UK, his dream again became reality; aged 68, he soloed again at the Long Mynd (where Louis is still a member today) and at Portmoak.
Sadly, in 1973, a serious stroke prevented any hopes of ever gliding gain. Lajos died a decade later, aged 82. By this time, Glasnost was creating a more relaxed, liberal political atmosphere, and Hungary gave him a State Funeral in recognition of his pioneering gliding achievements. He was the only Hungarian to ever hold a world record in this wonderful sport.
After his death, a statue was erected for him by the State at his old gliding club at Harmas Hatar Hegy, where last year on the 100th anniversary of his birth he was remembered by pilots young and old. He legacy lives on.