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| Date: | Thursday 19 August 1909 |
| Time: | day |
| Type: | Igo Etrich "Nurflügel" I tractor monoplane |
| Owner/operator: | Igo Etrich |
| Registration: | Unregistered |
| MSN: | N/K |
| Fatalities: | Fatalities: 0 / Occupants: 1 |
| Other fatalities: | 0 |
| Aircraft damage: | Destroyed |
| Location: | Steinfeld Airfield near Wiener Neustadt -
 Austria
|
| Phase: | Landing |
| Nature: | Test |
| Departure airport: | Steinfeld Airfield near Wiener Neustadt, Austria |
| Steinfeld Airfield near Wiener Neustadt, Austria | |
| Confidence Rating: |  Little or no information is available |
19 August 1909 Igo Etrich "Nurflügel" (Only Wings) tractor monoplane crashed on the airfield at Steinfeld near Wiener Neustadt, Austria. The aircraft had made its first flight at Steinfeld on 20 July 1909.
In 1909, the first airfield in the Austro-Hungarian Empire was founded in Wiener Neustadt. Igo Etrich rented two hangars and continued to develop his design, the Taube (Dove). Meanwhile, Wels visited Paris to study the aircraft of the Wright brothers and split with Igo Etrich over the question of whether to build a monoplane or biplane.
According to one source:
"In the fall of 1908 Igo Etrich sent Wels to France to obtain a “stronger” engine and also to appraise Orville and Wilbur Wright’s Flyer, which Wilbur had been demonstrating in Paris. Wels was so impressed that after returning to Vienna he began work on a similar biplane using ailerons instead of the Wrights’ wing-warping system. When Etrich returned from Russia, he was incensed to learn that Wels had abandoned the Zanonia-seed concept against his wishes. He stopped work on the biplane, dismissed Wels on July 20, 1909, and replaced him with a fellow Bohemian, Karl Illner.
By this time, Etrich had concluded that his flying wings could not maintain their stability with engines installed. Therefore, in 1907 he gave his Etrich I a fuselage with triangular vertical stabilizers above and below a larger horizontal stabilizer. The airplane remained underpowered, so in October 1909 Etrich bought a 40-hp Clerget inline water-cooled engine that proved sufficient.
Somehow, amid all his aviation activity, Etrich found time for other pursuits—on November 23, 1909, he married Miss Louise Fink-Bartholomei. The honeymoon was brief, however, for six days later, with the Clerget installed in his revised aircraft, Etrich achieved his first real flight in it, traveling 2¾ miles at 43.5 mph at an altitude of 82 feet. In so doing, he was credited with designing and piloting the first Austrian airplane capable of sustained flight".
Sources:
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Igo_Etrich#Aviation
2. https://www.gracesguide.co.uk/Igo_Etrich
3. https://www.ctie.monash.edu.au/hargrave/etrich_taube.htm
4. https://www.secretprojects.co.uk/threads/etrich-aircraft.27134/
5. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_aircraft_(pre-1914)#1909
6. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiener_Neustadt
Location
Revision history:
| Date/time | Contributor | Updates |
|---|---|---|
| 28-Mar-2008 05:04 | Bleiente | Added |
| 20-Dec-2024 15:53 | Dr. John Smith | Updated [Time, Aircraft type, Registration, Cn, Operator, Total fatalities, Total occupants, Location, Departure airport, Destination airport, Source, Narrative, Category, ] |
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