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Arthur Martens (28 March 1897 † 16 November 1937 in Steene, near Ostend, Belgium) was a German glider pioneer and engineer. He gained fame in 1922, among other things, when he set the first hour world record in gliding.
Life
Arthur Martens took part in the First World War as a lieutenant and front-line pilot in Manfred von Richthofen's fighter squadron. After the end of the war, he began studying mechanical engineering at the Technical University of Hanover in 1919, graduating with a degree in engineering. [1]
While still a student, Martens worked as a test pilot at the Hannoversche Waggonfabrik (HAWA). [1] On October 22, 1919, accompanied by a passenger, he climbed to an altitude of 8430 m above sea level in a HAWA D. 6 D 84 powered aircraft, which meant a new German altitude record. A short time later, he improved the altitude world record with a Hannover C. V. machine, first to 9250 and then to 9650 m.[2]
Autumn gliding flights in the Rhön in the presence of Erich Ludendorff (right). World record of 12 km long-distance flight, set by Martens (left) (1923)
At the beginning of the 1920s, Martens began to be enthusiastic about gliding. Between 1921 and 1925, he won eight German competitions[3] and set several world records. He also took part in competitions abroad (including victory in the first competition on the Waschberg near Vienna in 1923 – 269.6 m altitude, distance of 10 km; in 1924 participation in the second coastal competition on the Curonian Spit). After he had already set two world records in 1921 with the HAWA H 1 Vampyr, which he co-designed, an hour world record at the Rhön gliding competition the following year brought him great international fame by winning an "industry prize" (a glider flight of at least 40 minutes with return to the take-off site and subsequent 5 km cross-country flight in a straight direction). To this end, Martens took to the air in a vampyr on August 18, 1922 with a rubber rope launch from the Pferdskopf of the Wasserkuppe, the highest elevation in Hesse. The spectators on the ground formed numbers to show him the exact flight duration in minutes. After ten circumnavigations of the Wasserkuppe and a total of 66 minutes of flight time, he successfully landed with the Vampire, setting three world records. In addition to the first hourless flight, Martens covered a distance of 8.9 km and 108 m of take-off elevation. At the same time, he was the first glider pilot to use the updraft with a horizontal figure-eight, a technique that is widely used today. [4][2] On 25 August 1923, he set a new world record at the Rhön gliding competition with a flight distance of 12 km. [5]
Before the end of his career as a glider pilot, Martens set up the world's first gliding school on the Wasserkuppe. In 1925, he ceded this to the newly founded Rhön-Rossitten-Gesellschaft (RRG). With the first night flight on the occasion of the Rossitten Competition and his participation from 27 September to 11 October in the 3rd Soviet All-Union Gliding Competition in Koktebel in the Crimea, Martens ended his gliding career. [2]
In 1925, Martens became head of the sales department of the Vereinigte Deutsche Metallwerke (VDM) in Heddernheim. [3] As an engineer, he contributed to the improvement of the metal propeller and the development of adjustment screws. Martens controllable pitch propellers were also used in successful world record flight attempts. [1] For the ILA 1928, he took off on 16 August for a "European propaganda flight", the first stop of which was Hanover. [6] On August 25, he landed in London, from where he flew on to Amsterdam the next day. [7] As a powered pilot, he was nominated for the Hindenburg Cup in 1928, while he took part in the 1933 Deutschlandflug. [2] In the 1920s, Martens also wrote two books on gliding.
Arthur Martens was married. He regularly sent his wife Lotte "greetings from the air" via Oberursel in a Dornier Do 17 when he worked at VDM. [8] In 1937, Martens died at the age of 40 in the crash of a Belgian airliner near Ostend. He belonged to a travel group around the former Hereditary Grand Duke Georg Donatus of Hesse-Darmstadt, who was also enthusiastic about flying, and was on his way to a wedding celebration in London.
"In Arthur Martens, who is one of the dead in the Ostend air disaster, gliding has lost one of its pioneers, and German aviation has also lost one of its most visible figures, whose whole life belonged to aviation and its development. A few years after the war, Professor Madelung, once an assistant at the German Aviation Research Institute in Adlershof, sat down with the students Martens, Hentzen and Blume to construct a high-performance glider, supported by a Hanoverian factory. From the workshop of these aviation-loving designers came the famous 'Vampyr'. In the ranking of international records for gliding, Arthur Martens occupies fifth place after Lilienthal, Wilbur Wright, Gutermuth and Klemperer. Martens flew many records and has constantly improved them over the years. Later he devoted himself again to powered flying. […] Without his preparatory work, the later successes of German and thus also of international gliding would hardly be conceivable."
– Obituary in the Salzburger Volksblatt of 20 November 1937[9]
Martens was an honorary member of the German Model and Gliding Association. [10]
After the war, his widow married the aviation pioneer and later general secretary of the German Aero Club, Fritz Stamer. [8] In 1949, the gliding club in Oberursel was named after him,[11] which merged with the Luftsportclub Bad Homburg (LSC) in 2004. [12]
Records
22 October 1919: German powered flight altitude record of 8430 m above sea level with one passenger (aircraft type: HAWA D. 6 D 84)
1919: Powered flight altitude world record of 9250 m (aircraft type: Hannover C. V.)
1919: Powered flight altitude world record of 9650 m (aircraft type: Hannover C. V.)
25 August 1921: Gliding distance world record at the Rhön gliding competition with 3.58 km (aircraft type: HAWA Vampyr)
1921: Gliding distance world record with 7.5 km in 15.6 min (aircraft type: HAWA Vampyr)
18 August 1922: Gliding hour and distance world record with 66 min flight time over 8.9 km, 108 m take-off elevation (aircraft type: HAWA Vampyr)
1923: Gliding world record with 12 km (aircraft: "Strolch")
14 October 1924: Gliding distance world record of 21.2 km at the 1st International Competition in Asiago, Italy (route: Monte Mazze–Dueville with the aircraft "Moritz")
