A joiner’s prize money

Alexander Schleicher was a joiner’s son who learned the trade from his father, worked in a furniture factory, then built gliders at the Weltensegler works in Baden-Baden and in the workshop of the Rhön-Rossitten Gesellschaft on the Wasserkuppe, the cradle of German gliding. In 1926 he won a major prize at the annual Rhön gliding contest, and in 1927 he used the money to found his own company at Poppenhausen. It is now regarded as the oldest sailplane manufacturer in the world.

Furniture until 1951

The firm grew fast, building its own designs such as the Zögling and Professor and, under contract, Hans Jacobs’ DFS Rhönadler and Rhönbussard and a huge three-seat experimental glider for Alexander Lippisch. By 1939 it employed hundreds of workers, and in the war it maintained Hitler Youth training gliders. Gliding was banned in occupied Germany after 1945, so Schleicher went back to his first trade and made furniture until restrictions were lifted in 1951.

Kaiser, Waibel and the glass revolution

Post-war success came from two designers. Rudolf Kaiser drew the wooden trainers that taught generations to soar: the K 8 single-seater, more than 1,100 built, the Ka 6, more than 1,000, and the ASK 13 two-seater, about 700 by 1978. Gerhard Waibel led the move to glass fibre with the ASW series, and Kaiser’s fibreglass ASK 21 of 1979 passed 1,000 built. Alexander Schleicher ran the firm until his death in 1968; his grandsons run it today, building 70 to 80 gliders a year with about 120 staff.

מפעלים

• Poppenhausen works · Poppenhausen (Wasserkuppe), near Fulda, Hesse

אֲנָשִׁים

• אלכסנדר שלייכר · founder, 1901–1968 — Managed the firm until his death
• Rudolf Kaiser · designer of the Ka/K series and ASK 21
• Gerhard Waibel · designer of the ASW glass-fibre sailplanes
• Martin Heide and Michael Greiner · designers of the ASH and ASG series

שיאים וראשונות

• Regarded as the oldest sailplane manufacturer in the world