There have to be three people to push the 300 hp, 740 kilogram Mü 30 from the time-honored hangar at the Königsdorf gliding center onto the apron. Quickly check whether the parachute is in place – and then Sascha Odermann swings into the pilot’s seat of his beloved Mü 30 Schlacro for the photo: a downright tiny aircraft compared to the Airbus A350, which the Lower Saxony native flies full-time for Lufthansa on long-haul routes.
Commercial aviation is the bread-and-butter job of the trained aerospace engineer. But he also prefers to spend his free time in the air. Gliding and aerobatic flying are his hobbies, although the term seems to be an understatement given how close Odermann’s relationship to the Mü 30 Schlacro is. The nickname of the powered aircraft is an acronym of tow and acro. Because the Mü 30 is a combination of tow and aerobatic aircraft. On the one hand, you can use it to raise gliders and, on the other hand, paint artistic, fleeting flying figures in the sky, like the hearts and pretzels that were seen over Munich at Oktoberfest this year. They have brought a certain level of notoriety to Odermann and the Akaflieg Munich club, which built the Schlacro on its own initiative at the end of the 1990s.
Heart in the sky: Odermann amazed many people with his aerial paintings over the Oktoberfest.
(Photo: Wolfgang Maria Weber/IMAGO)
The cloud images, precisely painted in the sky with artistic flying figures, are part of Odermann’s standard repertoire. “The heart is part of my air shows,” he says. This year too, he drew it in the Upper Bavarian sky at the Königsdorf Airfield Festival to the cheers of the spectators. But the Oktoberfest hearts and pretzels were a spontaneous idea, says Odermann with shining eyes. “The weather and wind conditions were simply perfect,” he reports, “and the anticipation of the Oktoberfest tapping could be felt throughout the city.” He then made phone calls to German air traffic control and the police. “When I explained what I wanted to do, they were also enthusiastic about my idea and supported me a lot,” remembers the pilot.
Odermann then flew extra high over the city in order to have calm air for the characters. This means that the pretzels and hearts made of white steam remain visible in the sky for as long as possible. To paint them, he uses a switch on the control stick to inject thin liquid medical paraffin, which is also used in the production of creams, from a tank into the hot exhaust air of the aircraft engine. The dense white vapor that can be seen from afar forms and later completely dissipates, “like disco fog,” says the pilot. Once the heart or pretzel has finished flying, Odermann has to stop the paraffin supply precisely.
“That looks really good,” came to his mind as he looked down from the cockpit, he reports of his flight at the Oktoberfest tapping. But he never imagined that his air painting would make such waves over the city. “Acquaintances enthusiastically told me that someone had painted hearts in the sky above the Oktoberfest,” he says. “They didn’t even realize it was me.”
The Mü30 Schlacro in action at the Königsdorf airfield festival.
(Photo: Hartmut Pöstges)
The 47-year-old is satisfied when he can make people down on earth happy with his aerial acrobatics. You can see that in his smile when he talks about it. Odermann operates the fireplace in the comfortably furnished extension of the Akaflieg hangar until a warming fire crackles. “I love the spirit here,” he says. Two other club members have just returned from a maintenance flight to Linz in a motor glider. They exchange ideas briefly, Odermann offers coffee and sinks into one of the sagging sofas.
Sascha Odermann discovered his passion for flying as a child. “I’ve always looked up,” he says. He started tinkering with his own model airplanes early on and found like-minded people and team spirit support at the Nienhagen model sports association near Celle. It is hardly surprising that he later ended up as a student of aerospace engineering in 1997 at the Akaflieg Munich in the Königsdorf gliding center – after all, the “aviation research group for Munich students”, as it is called on the club’s website, offers the perfect breeding ground for aviation enthusiasts. “Construct, build, fly” is the club’s motto. After just one year of membership, Odermann had his glider license in his pocket.
The Königsdorf drinks dealer Markus Orterer made him aware of his talent as an aerial painter, recalls Odermann. After he practiced flight maneuvers over the gliding center, Orterer said: “Now add another star in the middle and you have a Mercedes-Benz.” The 47-year-old says he has already practiced on the Olympic rings. His air paintings could still appear in the sky in many places.