Rhön-Rossitten Gesellschaft

Founded in 1924, the Rhön-Rositten Gesellschaft (Rhön & Rositten society) became the first official organization for glider and sailplane flying, training and research. While under the Nazis, sailplane flying and training were taken over by the sport groups of the Hitlerjugend, research and glider construction continued in the new Deutsche Forschungsanstalt Für Segelflug (DFS) Up to world war II, RRG and DFS have been the main spearheads of German aeronautical design.

As the treaty of Versailles forbid any form of powered flight in Germany, many young pilots and aircraft designers turned to gliding as a sport. Under Oskar Ursinus, and Theo Von Karmann not only hobby builders but also serious university study groups turned to glider construction and 1920 saw the first gliding contest on the mountain of the Wasserkuppe in the Rhön region of Hesse. While many of the entering designs were no more than kites and many of the 'flights' were no more than stumbles ending in a crash, Von Karman and his team from the RWTH Aachen with their glider Schwarze Teufel (Black devil) pioneered the rubber launch method and regularly managed flights of over a minute followed by a pitch-perfect crash-free landing.

The event was repeated the next year, and from there on every year since. Every year with better planes (that actually started to look like gliders) and better results.

In the meantime, a second hotbed of glider development emerged at the Rositten sand dunes at the Curonian Spit in what is now Rybachy, in the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad (but was at that time still part of the patchwork of the remaining German empire). Although half a continent apart, the enthusiasts from the Wasserkuppe and the Rositten frequently intermingled and compared ideas, designs and techniques. Thus originated the idea of one big father organization synchronizing not only the activities at the Rhön and the Rossitten dunes, but also those of every emerging gliding club in between. In 1924 finally, 'Rhönvater' (Rhön father) Oskar Ursinus, convinced the then secretary of air transport for the ministry of transportation, Dr. Brandenburg to found a national gliding organization. Thus started the society of (the) Rhön (and the) Rositten: the Rhön-Rossitten Gesellschaft

From the start on, the new society did everything to provide all-round service to all gliding enthusiasts: it organized yearly gliding competitions, it managed flying schools at the Rositten and the Wasserkuppe, it had its own workplaces for glider construction and its own research team to spearhead the development of newer and better gliders. Also part of the society was a meteorological workgroup researching the dynamics behind thermik and slopewinds.

In 1925, Ursinus took yet another bold step by appointing Alexander Lippisch as head of the technical branch of the RRG. Lippisch, a researcher and designer if there ever was one, took the workplaces of the RRG to unknown heights by leading the construction of ever more powerful and better adapted planes, making the transition from hang gliders to gliders to full sailplanes. Also in 1925 the ban on motor airplanes was partially lifted and soon the RRG also started experimenting with motor gliders. Finally, next to the now 'traditional' way of rubber-launching gliders, the RRG also developed the winch launching and aircraft towing method of getting a glider airborne.

The most impressive accomplishment of the Rhön-Rositten Geselschaft however is that it established sailplane flying as a sport, not only in Germany but eventually all around the world.

In 1933 with the Nazis in power, the RRG as an independent society could no longer exist in a uniform national-socialist Germany. Therefore the RRG was broken up with the flying club part being swallowed into the Hitlerjugend, the design and research part preserved under the new name of "Deutsche Forschungsanstalt für Segelflug" (DFS), the German Research Society for Gliding. Although a new society, Lippish was allowed to retain his post as chief designer and under his leadership the DFS continued to turn out one successful sailplane after another.