Igo Etrich

Ignaz "Igo" Etrich (December 25, 1879 in Horní Staré Město, Trutnov, Bohemia – February 4, 1967 in Salzburg, Austria), Austrian flight pioneer, pilot and fixed-wing aircraft developer.

Igo went to school at Leipzig, where he came in contact with the works of Otto Lilienthal. His main interest was in aviation, the problems of bird flight. With his father, a factory-owner, he built a laboratory for developing aeroplanes. After the death of Lilienthal his father acquired some advanced gliders.

Prof. Ahlborn had published a paper in 1897, in which he had described the flying seed of Zanonia macrocarpa. Etrich and his co-worker Franz Xaver Wels designed an unmanned glider of similar form and flew it successfully in 1904. Attempts to add an engine failed, but a successful manned glider was flown in 1906.

He also worked with Karl Illner.

The next stop of Igo Etrich was Vienna, where he had his second laboratory in the Wiener Prater at the Rotunde. In 1907 he built his Etrich I, the Praterspatz (Prater park Sparrow ) there. Due to the low power (24 hp) of the motor and the limited space for flying, the aircraft was unsuccessful. Further designs

In 1909 the first airfield of the Austro-Hungarian Empire was founded in Wiener Neustadt. Etrich rented two hangars (or aircraft-sheds, as they were called then) and continued to develop his design, the Taube (Dove). Meanwhile, his co-developer Franz Xaver Wels visited Paris to study the aircraft of the Wright Brothers and split with Etrich over the question of whether to build a monoplane or a biplane.

In 1910 his Etrich II, or Etrich Taube made its maiden flight. In an early flight, Etrich nearly broke his back when his Taube crashed. From then on, Karl Illner made all of Etrich's test flights. Etrich continued to refine the Taube so as to meet the specifications of the military, which included the requirement that an aircraft had to be able to land on a freshly plowed field.

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