Video from the Past [08] - Hanna Reitsch Interview (1976)

Video from the Past [08] - Hanna Reitsch Interview (1976)

Hanna Reitsch was a German aviatrix, test pilot, and the only woman awarded the Iron Cross First Class and the Luftwaffe Pilot/Observer Badge in Gold with Diamonds during World War II. She set over forty aviation altitude and endurance records during her career, both before and after World War II, and several of her international gliding records still stood in 2012. In the 1960s she founded a gliding school in Ghana, where she worked for Kwame Nkrumah.

From 1935, Hanna began to be involved in glider research and test gliding. In 1937 she was one of the first pilots to cross the Alps in a glider. Around this time she was ordered to report to a Luftwaffe testing station for duty as a test pilot, and thus began the type of flying for which she is best known. She flew a wide variety of types of military aircraft, including the Junkers Ju 87 Stuka and Dornier Do 17. Her obvious flying skill made her a star in the Nazi party, though she herself was not interested in politics and simply loved flying.

In 1937 Hanna first flew an early helicopter, which had been designed by Professor Focke of Bremen. Teaching herself to fly it, she thoroughly impressed its inventor, and was soon engaged to fly indoors, demonstrating the new flying machine to the public inside the Deutschlandhalle at the Berlin Motor Show. This gave her a love of helicopters which was to last all her life.

With the outbreak of war in 1939 Hanna was asked to fly many of Germany's latest designs. Among these were the rocket-propelled Messerschmitt Me 163 Komet, and several larger bombers, on which she tested various mechanisms for cutting barrage balloon cables. She became Adolf Hitler's favourite pilot and was one of only two women awarded the Iron Cross First Class during World War II.

Hanna was captured and interned towards the end of the war, but afterwards settled in Frankfurt am Main, in Germany. She took up gliding again, and became German champion in 1955. Throughout the 1970s she continued to fly, breaking gliding records in many categories. She died in Frankfurt at the age of 67, on 24th August 1979 following a heart attack.

Видео Video from the Past [08] - Hanna Reitsch Interview (1976) канала Chuck Owl