36 Nebraskaland • June 2020
n 1909 Ulrick Sorensen faced a decision that would
determine his future. It was potentially a life-or-death
choice.
This is a story about the early days of aviation in
Nebraska. The state's fi rst
powered airplane fl ights
happened in 1910, but
a year earlier Sorensen
made what I believe to
be the fi rst manned glider
fl ight in Nebraska.
Sorensen launched his
glider near Berwyn in
Custer County. A farmer by
background, "Professor"
Sorenson earned money
in the early 1900s by
making parachute jumps
at county fairs and events
in central Nebraska.
This is where the story
gets a little confusing
to the modern reader.
How did he do parachute
jumps before there were
airplanes?
You are correct if you
guessed jumping from
a balloon. But consider
that the modern hot air
balloon, with its onboard
propane tanks, wasn't
invented until 1960. What
were balloons like before
then?
Starting in 1783,
there were two kinds of
balloons. Gas balloons
were fi lled with hydrogen.
Smoke balloons were
essentially big cloth bags heated over a bonfi re. Smoke
balloons didn't stay up long. They came back down as the hot
air inside them cooled off .
Sorensen used a smoke balloon. He didn't use a basket. In
the photo at (opposite middle) he's sitting on an iron bar. An
unlabeled photo (opposite bottom) from Spalding shows a
balloon and parachute that are probably Sorensen's.
The fi rst parachutes were
demonstrated in the 1790s,
more than a century before
airplanes, but the earliest
knapsack parachutes and
harnesses weren't invented
until several years after
this photo. What were
parachutes like before
that?
The parachute is
hanging from the balloon,
and a trapeze bar hangs
from the parachute. Many
parachutists would hang
from the trapeze bar while
straddling a bit of netting
that served as a kind of
safety harness. Sorenson
appears to be sitting on
the trapeze bar. He used
no safety harness, only
his hands and the seat
of his pants. He pulled a
release cord to detach the
parachute.
By now you may have
guessed how Sorensen
planned to launch his
glider, which he based on
a Wright Brothers design.
On June 13, 1909,
Sorensen attached his
glider to his balloon, and a
crowd watched him go up.
It was reported that the
balloon rose so quickly that the glider's tail was damaged as
it left the ground. But Sorensen didn't notice it.
Sorensen pulled the release cord at about 3,500 feet, and
By David L. Bristow, History Nebraska
I
Surviving a 1909 Nebraska
Plans for building a Wright-style glider appeared in the April 1909
issue of Popular Mechanics.
