Friedrich Karl von Koenig-Warthausen
Friedrich Karl Richard Paul August Freiherr[1] Koenig von und zu Warthausen[2] (2 April 1906 – 15 December 1986) was a German aviator who made the first solo flight around the world in 1928–1929.
[3][6]: 6 This aircraft, registration number D-1433, which he named Kamerad, was a two-seater low-wing monoplane with an empty weight of only 254 kilograms (560 lb),[6]: 6 a top speed of 105 kilometres per hour (65 mph) and landing speed of just 32 kilometres per hour (20 mph), and powered by an air-cooled, two-cylinder Daimler-Benz F-7502 boxer engine[7] delivering only 20 hp (15 kW) This aircraft, with its high aspect ratio and very low wing loading, would today be classified as an ultralight.
At the recommendation of Russia's War Minister General Semyon Budyonny, after a few days he continued his flight, heading south-east across the Caucasus to Persia, landing at Baku.
There he also met the aviator Freiherr von Hünefeld,[3] who had completed the first Atlantic crossing from East to West only six months before, and was attempting his own circumnavigation with Swedish pilot Karl Gunnar Lindner in his Junkers W 33 named Europa.
[5] Koenig-Warthausen left Calcutta on 5 February 1929, heading south and stopping at Akyab and Rangoon in Burma, before flying through a tropical thunderstorm to Bangkok, Siam, without the aid even of a compass.
[6]: 115 Koenig-Warthausen finally left Bangkok on 25 March, heading south to Prachuap Khiri Khan and Songkhla, and experiencing another tropical storm while flying over Penang before arriving at Singapore.
[6]: 142 In Los Angeles, he met fellow Swabian, film producer Carl Laemmle,[5] before flying to San Diego, then Tucson, Arizona, and El Paso, Texas.
He flew over the Niagara Falls to Buffalo, New York, then to Syracuse and Albany, eventually arriving at Roosevelt Field, Long Island, on 2 November, and just failing to win the Hindenburg Cup for a second time.
[3] After several receptions, newspaper interviews and speeches,[3] a meeting with his hero Charles Lindbergh at the "Quiet Birdmen Club"[5] and a visit to Washington, D.C., Koenig-Warthausen boarded the ocean liner SS Bremen to return to Europe.
After arriving in Bremerhaven he flew on, but thick fog forced him to end his flight in Hanover on 23 November 1929, 15 months after it began, having covered 20,000 miles (32,000 km) in 450 hours flying time.
[3] Following his flight, Koenig-Warthausen travelled widely throughout North America, promoting the German aircraft industry,[2] before attending the University of Tübingen from 1931, studying economic and transport geography, and gaining his D.Phil.
He then married Sigrid Roesner on 19 March 1957, with whom he had a son, Hans-Christoph Hubertus Alexander Franz-Ferdinand Friedrich Freiherr Koenig von und zu Warthausen, born on 12 April 1958.
