Alexander Leo Soldenhoff (1882–1951) was a Swiss artist and aircraft designer. Born in
Switzerland
Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a landlocked country located in west-central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland ...
, he lived much of his life in Germany.
In 1906 he married Anna Zweifler from
Glarus
Glarus (; ; ; ; ) is the capital of the canton of Glarus in Switzerland. Since 1 January 2011, the municipality of Glarus incorporates the former municipalities of Ennenda, Netstal and Riedern.tailless,
swept-wing
A swept wing is a wing angled either backward or occasionally forward from its root rather than perpendicular to the fuselage.
Swept wings have been flown since the pioneer days of aviation. Wing sweep at high speeds was first investigated in Ge ...
"safety aeroplane" after the manner of designs already produced from 1909.
He built his first full-size glider and began attempts to fly in 1915. He completed the ''Bülbül I'' in July 1928 and entered it in that year's Rhön competition but it was blown backwards and damaged before he could launch it.
His subsequent aircraft would all be tailless swept-wing, single-engined types with a short fuselage and
pusher propeller
In aeronautical and naval engineering, pusher configuration is the term used to describe a drivetrain of air- or watercraft with propulsion device(s) after the engine(s). This is in contrast to the more conventional tractor configuration, whic ...
, although he envisaged some much larger and more complex designs. The examples which flew included:
* V 1, later redesignated So A/1. 1927.
* LF 5 "Berliner", later redesignated So A/2. 1929. Flown by Gottlob Espenlaub (the design is sometimes also mistakenly attributed to him).
* So A/3 "Düsseldorfer". 1930. Soldenhoff's most successful design.
* So A/4 "Böblingerin". 1931.
* So A/5, a second "Böblingerin". 1931.
* SL 1. 1936. Flew briefly. Now on display as the S-5 in the
Swiss Museum of Transport
The Swiss Museum of Transport or ''Verkehrshaus der Schweiz'' (literally "Transportation House of Switzerland") in Lucerne opened in July 1959 and exhibits all forms of transport including trains, automobiles, ships and aircraft as well as communi ...