Rocket Mail

Reinhold Tiling

Tiling was a German engineer from Osnabruck. He only used a mail rocket once. He built the first German postal rocket, which flew a demonstration flight at Lake Dummer near Deelingen.

The rocket had folding wings, reached heights of 3km,(9000 feet) and flew a distance of 7Km (4 miles). Tiling experimented with little publicity as he had financial backing from a local landowner, Freiherr von Ledebur. The postal rocket carried 188 numbered postcards which had been signed by Tiling and had a red cachet ‘Tiling Raketenflugzeug (k) FLT 3 Osnabruck 15,IV,1931’ applied.

The picture side showed a Tiling rocket launch. Tiling experimented with many rockets but stopped using postal rockets. He dreamed of building a rocket to fly across the Channel. His experiments used solid fuels such as gunpowder.

On 10 October 1933 Reinhold Tiling and two co-workers were killed after a powder explosion in the laboratory.

Written by Bert van Eijck and translated for Orbit by Charles Bromser.

Tiling's postal rocket carried 188 numbered and signed postcards.

<-- Back ----- Next -->

 

 

Back to Top