In 1928, he graduated from the Technical University of Stuttgart with a diploma in engineering and began to focus on aircraft construction. Over the next decade, he would also tour the world, promoting gliding throughout Europe, the United States, Japan, South America, and South Africa. On 10 March 1931 he gave a demonstration of glider aerobatics over New York City. On one of these publicity trips, he suffered major injuries in a crash in Hungary, requiring a hospital stay of four months. He and Robert Kronfeld were the first pilots to gain the Silver C badge. He was the chief flying instructor at the Grünau Gliding School in the Riesengebirge mountains, then in Germany. In 1933, he became the Head of the new Gliding School in Hornberg.