Bruno Gantenbrink came to flying by chance. The boy should do sports, his parents said, and sent the 14-year-old to the clay pitches in his hometown of Menden. But he found himself “extremely untalented” with the ball and racket and preferred to switch to the nearby airfield: “I decided to take up gliding so that I didn’t have to play tennis anymore.” What followed was an unparalleled international career: Gantenbrink became national champion several times, as well as European and world champion.
The Westphalian, born in 1949, has been a constant in cross-country gliding competitions for five decades and today he still competes on an equal footing with the world elite. In 2018, the entrepreneur was appointed to the exclusive circle of “Living Legends of Aviation”, a kind of aviation hall of fame that includes around 100 pilots and astronauts worldwide. Gantenbrink was honored not only for his flying achievements, but also for his courageous statements about the fatal risks of competitive flying, a topic that has been suppressed in the scene. But more on that later.
On-site appointment at the Iserlohn-Rheinermark special landing site, not far from Dortmund on the edge of the Sauerland. An almost 800 meter long grass runway, hangars with open doors, a row of long white glider trailers, a workshop and a lounge with an espresso machine. Further back, a winch pulls a training aircraft seemingly silently at a steep angle. This is where Gantenbrink’s unprecedented long-term career began in the early 1960s, and it seems as if not much has changed since then.
World champion Bruno Gantenbrink
Quelle: Bruno Gantenbrink
Some time ago, the long-time boss withdrew from the operational management of his family business and made room for the next generation. BEGA Gantenbrink Leuchten KG, founded in 1945, produces and sells lighting technology at home and abroad. The company’s success gave the pilot Gantenbrink economic independence, and at the same time the pilot also inspired the company manager Gantenbrink, he says. Which doesn’t just apply to him: “Good glider pilots are also significantly more successful in their careers than the average person.”
Gliding as a school for managers
It is not the extreme conditions that high-performance pilots are exposed to – often crammed into a narrow plastic tube for nine or ten hours looking for updrafts, covering more than 1000 kilometers and sometimes braving adventurous weather conditions – that, from his point of view, are what the glider cockpit is about make it the “ideal school for managers”. The decision-making mentality makes the difference, says Gantenbrink, in aviation as well as in the company: “What criteria do I use to make my decision? When in doubt, what is the minor error? How much risk can I take if I make an uncertain decision?”
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In the job and at the controls of an aircraft, in competitive situations it is important to do the right thing at the right time – or not do it. Physical fitness, meteorological knowledge, even flying experience – all of this is overrated, he says. An outstanding competition pilot must, above all, be an “excellent poker player” who can get the best out of a situation with a number of unknown variables. This is primarily a question of mentality that cannot be trained. When making decisions, there is often no guideline that one can rely on: “What could be successful can only be assessed in retrospect.”
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And he knows from his own experience the narrow line to danger, the careless moment when courage turns into arrogance. Gantenbrink almost paid for this mistake with his life at a young age. At the end of a competition in which the twenty-something was already unassailably ahead, he wanted to impress his girlfriend, who was waiting on the ground, with a daring performance when he reached the finish line. He pulled his plane up after a low overflight, but the maneuver “completely failed,” the machine went into a spin and fell to the ground from 80 or 90 meters. “Actually, I should have died on the spot, it was an incredible stroke of luck that I didn’t suffer any serious long-term damage.” But the injuries are serious. Four weeks in the hospital, two months in a wheelchair, then on crutches – and a lesson for life.
Respect for the risks is often lacking
When he can walk again without any aids, the student returns to the cockpit and manages 500 kilometers in one go with an old K6, a wooden airplane. Despite all his successes, he will always remember how close triumph and catastrophe are in competitive flying. 20 years later, in the mid-1990s, Gantenbrink gave an uncomfortable speech at the Glider Day in which he asked the question “how to survive our sport”. The star of the scene vehemently criticizes the advertising slogan often used by the clubs: “The most dangerous thing about flying is the journey to the airport.”
For the successful competition pilot, this is “terrific nonsense,” a downright “idiotic sentence when you think about it,” he says, “and I had reason to think about it.” Previously, three fatal accidents had occurred within the national team “in a very short space of time”. Three out of twelve pilots “who were among the best”. One of them was the designer Klaus Holighaus, who crashed into a rock face in the Alps on the Gotthard massif in August 1994 with a Nimbus he had developed himself.
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Holighaus had 9,666 flight hours, 1,273 of which were on the accident type, with which he “achieved several world records,” according to the final report from the Swiss authorities. Bad weather in the region of the accident probably played a role, but on the other hand it was possible to return and land safely at an airfield at any time. The investigators were at a loss and the underlying cause of the crash was never clarified. In his own interest, Gantenbrink analyzed the similarities of several fatal accidents in the national team. His conclusion: “The thing that all crashes have in common is not the danger, but the attitude of the pilots towards the danger.” Particularly among particularly efficient pilots, respect for risks is often lacking. In other words: It is precisely the great routine and fearlessness that promote serious accidents.
Despite all the technical innovations, the number of gliding accidents has remained roughly the same over the past few decades. And Gantenbrink’s personal record is alarming when it comes to the comparison with driving a car: “When I reflect today, I can think of at least two dozen glider pilots who were killed in crashes that I knew personally, with whom I flew competitions, with whom I was friends . I didn’t lose a single pilot I knew in traffic, let alone on the way to the airport.”
Gantenbrink before taking off with WELT author Altrogge
Quelle: Bruno Gantenbrink
In the air, however, the best of the best always seem to fail in responding to deadly risks in a timely and adequate manner. Gantenbrink believes he knows what can prevent this: “Respect for things and the awareness that even small negligence can have dire consequences.”
The archaic appeal of gliding
But despite the awareness that “the dangerous part of the day begins” when he climbs into the cockpit, for Gantenbrink, gliding has lost none of its archaic appeal even after decades. In elimination races, all pilots are constantly confronted with “an unknown data situation” that is defined by “updrafts, terrain, wind and the competitive situation and constantly changes over time.” The basis for decisions is “uncertain” and everything depends on each other: “Every cloud I see looks different or even disappears within minutes.”
Gantenbrink sails above things with his aircraft
Quelle: Bruno Gantenbrink
To be at the top of the competition under such conditions requires a special mentality, says Gantenbrink. This also includes “the courage to recognize a decision once made as a mistake and to correct it.” It’s all about the right balance of the “risk costume” – one reason why the world‘s best reach their peak performance between the ages of 35 and 40. After that, the hunger for success decreases and the willingness to go all out decreases. Gantenbrink still doesn’t shy away from comparisons with younger people: “I may no longer be good enough to win a title as German champion, but with the right aircraft I’m still good enough to finish in the top five.”
The world record is 3000 kilometers
Since he first took part in a championship in 1973, the material has changed rapidly. High-end glider pilots today achieve a glide angle of 1:70 and can fly 70 kilometers from a height of 1000 meters without thermal updrafts. The world record for engineless flights is 3,000 kilometers, flown in the lee waves of the Argentine Andes, a distance like from Denmark to Sicily. The wingspan of these gliders is around 30 meters, the same as a Boeing 707. The trend is now moving back towards aircraft with a smaller wingspan and higher wing loading, which are more maneuverable and glide better at high speeds.
For the next competition, the veteran wants to switch to such a hyper-modern aircraft, a Jonker JS3, with which he expects better chances. In July, Bruno Gantenbrink will compete against the country’s currently best pilots at the qualification for the German Open Class Championships in Jena. At 75 years old.
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