Lilienthal Gliding Medal – the highest soaring award in the world, established by

Fédération Aéronautique Internationale The World Air Sports Federation (; FAI) is the world governing body for air sports, and also stewards definitions regarding human spaceflight. It was founded on 14 October 1905, and is headquartered in Lausanne, Switzerland. It maintains worl ...

(FAI) in 1938, and is given at the annual

(FAI) General Conference. It was created in honour of

Otto Lilienthal Karl Wilhelm Otto Lilienthal (23 May 1848 – 10 August 1896) was a German pioneer of aviation who became known as the "flying man". He was the first person to make well-documented, repeated, successful flights with gliders, therefore making t ...

, a

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...

pioneer of human

aviation Aviation includes the activities surrounding mechanical flight and the aircraft industry. ''Aircraft'' include fixed-wing and rotary-wing types, morphable wings, wing-less lifting bodies, as well as lighter-than-air aircraft such as h ...

. It aims "to reward a particularly remarkable performance in

gliding Gliding is a recreational activity and competitive air sports, air sport in which pilots fly glider aircraft, unpowered aircraft known as Glider (sailplane), gliders or sailplanes using naturally occurring currents of rising air in the atmospher ...

, or eminent services to the sport of gliding over a long period of time." The actual Lilienthal Medal was designed by

Austria Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine Federal states of Austria, states, of which the capital Vienna is the List of largest cities in Aust ...

n artist Josef Humplik. The first winner of the Lilienthal Gliding Medal in the world was Tadeusz Góra for his record-breaking

flight Flight or flying is the motion (physics), motion of an Physical object, object through an atmosphere, or through the vacuum of Outer space, space, without contacting any planetary surface. This can be achieved by generating aerodynamic lift ass ...

on 18 May 1938, glider PWS-101 from Bezmiechowa to Soleczniki (near

Vilnius Vilnius ( , ) is the capital of and List of cities in Lithuania#Cities, largest city in Lithuania and the List of cities in the Baltic states by population, most-populous city in the Baltic states. The city's estimated January 2025 population w ...

). The Medal is awarded by the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale via vote of the delegates to the International Gliding Commission at the annual Plenary in March. In 2012, it was decided to end the practice of awarding the Medal for accomplishments of the previous calendar year, and to associate the Medal with the year in which the recipient is determined. Consequently, the year 2013 was not awarded, therefore does not appear in the table below.

Recipients

Recipients of the International Gliding Commission award, from 1938 to present, include:

References

{{Authority control Aviation awards Gliding Awards established in 1938 Otto Lilienthal 1938 establishments in Switzerland

Recipients

See also

References