Karl Otto Lange
German engineer

Karl Otto Heinrich Lange, Dr.-Ing. (1903 – November 29, 1973) was a pioneer in aviation (soaring), atmospheric science, engineering education, and biomedical engineering (effects of gravity and vibration).
Lange joined the meteorology faculty of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1931. After his arrival, according to THE TECH, MIT's newspaper, daily weather observations from the ground level to a height of more than three miles (5 km) above Boston will be made by meteorologists of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in an airplane equipped to record temperature, barometric pressure and relative humidity.
To carry out this work, MIT secured funds to purchase a Cessna cabin monoplane powered with a 120 horsepower (89 kW) Warner engine. The
daily flights of this plane were part of a research program designed to gain new knowledge to aid in weather forecasting by measuring the variation of temperature and moisture at various altitudes in different air currents.
Improvement in weather data
C. G. A. Rossby, who led the institute's division of Meteorology, collaborated in studies to develop improved methods of recording weather data for comprehensive studies of cloud formations and their connection with the vertical structure of the atmosphere. Specially designed photographic equipment was installed in the plane. The readings are automatically and continuously recorded throughout the flight on a thin sheet of smoked aluminum foil on a revolving drum. The research plane has places for three passengers in addition to the pilot, and was fitted with various scientific instruments for special weather studies, including a meteorograph used for registering temperature, barometric pressure and relative humidity.
“Karl Otto Lange” enters the record as german engineer. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Karl, Otto and Lange can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 30, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q6372133. VIAF identifies the subject as 269831407. 1 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1903, 1973 and 1931.
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This entry incorporates text from “Karl Otto Lange” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.