History

The Akaflieg München was founded on 8 July 1924. On this day, more than 100 students met in the lecture hall 532 of the Technical University of Munich. They responded to an appeal by TH professors Dr. C. v. Kraus, Dr. W. v. Dyck, Dr. S. Finsterwalder and C. Prinz to form an "Academic Flying Group" to learn to fly (see picture on the left).

Soon after this meeting, the Akaflieg had more than 300 members. The director, Dr. H. Weidinger, taught the students the basics of flight technology, and in the same year the first glider, the Mü 1 "Vogel Roch", was built and flown in.

In 1926 the Akaflieg participated for the first time with its own aircraft, the Mü2 "Münchner Kindl", in the Rhön competition on a mountain called Wasserkuppe. In the same year, the group received a business and construction room in the tower building of the TH (today TU) and a workshop on the ground floor at Arcisstraße. The flight operations took place in Prien near the Chiemsee. As their mascot the students chose "Huckebein the Raven", a rebellious bird from the book of Wilhelm Busch.

In 1928 the Akaflieg received a Klemm L25 for glider towing and powered flight, which was converted to a five cylinder BMW Xa engine (see picture above). In the meantime, a number of members had learned motorized flight at the Oberbayerische Sportflug-GmbH in Schleißheim. With the L25 and snow skids, "Wim" Hoffmann landed on the "Zugspitzplatt" in 1929. Subsequently, powered flight moved into the foreground, the Akaflieg acquired a BFW M 23 and in 1932 a Focke-Wulf S1.

Furthermore, gliders were built and flown, such as the Mü10 "Milan", a successful design by Egon Scheibe, with which the so-called "Munich School" was founded. The rush for membership continued to be great, despite the regulation that 150 (later even 300) hours of work had to be done before admission.

In the Third Reich the name Akaflieg Munich was changed into Flugtechnische Fachgruppe (FFG). It was thus spared membership of the German Air Sports Association (DLV), which later became the National Socialist Air Corps (NSFK). For members from other Akaflieg, too, this was a successful move by the older member who had been working in the industry, the Reich Aviation Ministry (RLM), the DVL and other institutions. The group was provided with considerable state funds for research and flight operations, which led to brisk construction activity (Mü11 to Mü15). In 1938, the ISTUS (International Study Commission for Gliding) announced an international design competition for the construction of the "Olympic Unity Glider" for the 1940 Olympic Games. The Akaflieg München participated in this competition with the project Mü17 and reached the second place. During the war, "war important" orders were given to the Akafliegs to prevent students from being convened in war.

Later the measuring aircraft Mü18 and the project DM-1 (Darmstadt-Munich-1) were developed. Flight operations suffered under the war conditions and stopped completely towards the end of the war.

After the capitulation, flight operations and research work were not possible for the Akaflieg München, as both were prohibited in Germany. It was not until 1949 that students and professors met again at the TH under the name "Arbeitsgemeinschaft für Strömungsmechanik" (Working group for fluid mechanics). They started with a clean-up of the office in the TH tower and the workshop in Prien, set up a blueprint shop to earn some money and constructed a rigid sail for a boat on the Chiemsee, because the development of airplanes was still forbidden. In 1951 Akaflieger took the Mü10 "Milan" from the German Museum, where the glider had survived the war, and resumed flight operations in Prien. Mü13 replica, "Spatz" (Sparrow) and "Specht" (Woodpecker) were added shortly after, later a Klemm as tow plane too. For the project Mü22 a research contract was obtained from the Federal Ministry of Transport.

Two research directions competed in the early 1950s in the Akaflieg Munich: the Mü10 / Mü13 line (Mü profile, steel tube wing), from which the Mü23 emerged, and the Mü22 line, which saw the future of glider construction in the use of modern laminar profiles. The Mü22 line finally established itself. The Mü10 finally went to the "Deutsches Museum" in 1959, and the Mü22 was lost in an air accident. Therefore, a replica of the Mü17 and a "Bocian" two-seater were added. The TH provided the Akaflieg with a "Fieseler Storch" (stork) as tow plane. A modified version of the Mü22 was built as Mü22b. Later the Mü26 was developed further.

In 1964, the Akaflieg had to leave the Prien airfield. Only after three flying seasons, which were flown at the Unterwössen, Oberwiesenfeld and Geitau airfields, the Akaflieg started found a new home at the new site in Königsdorf in 1968. The hangar was completed in 1969 after great efforts. A towing winch was also purchased, as the "Storch" was very uneconomical. In the following years, the Akaflieg continuously expanded its number of flying hours and take-offs and its aircraft fleet. The Mü27 and Mü28 projects marked the transition to composite construction, which had already been initiated with the Mü26 fuselage. The projects were now not only technically demanding and forward-looking, but also complex, time-consuming and expensive. The number of active members settled at around 30 active members.

The Königsdorf airfield proved to be the ideal base for the Akaflieg for extensive cross-country flights in the Alps. The Fieseler Storch was replaced by a Monsun, and a new cable winch replaced the old one. When the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering moved from the main campus in the city center to Garching in the north of Munich at the beginning of 1997, the Akaflieg now also has a new design office and a new workshop there, where the Mü 30 and Mü 31 projects were completed. The first flight of the Mü 30 took place on June 16, 2000, the first flight of the Mü 31 on September 15, 2017.