Gerhard Fieseler

Gerhard Fieseler (1896 to 1987) was a German pilot who was at once a First World War flying ace, an aerobatics champion and an aircraft maker. Born near Cologne, he joined the Imperial German Army Air Service in 1915 and was credited with nineteen confirmed victories, making him the top-scoring German ace of the Eastern Front to survive the war. After the war he returned to printing, then became a flight instructor and stunt pilot with Raab-Katzenstein in Kassel, where in 1928 he designed the Fieseler F1 stunt plane. In 1930 he bought a sailplane factory and renamed it Fieseler Flugzeugbau, whose Fi 156 Storch liaison aircraft won a design contest in 1936. He published an autobiography titled Meine Bahn am Himmel, and the Fieseler aerobatic manoeuvre carries his name. He died in Kassel aged 91.