Herbert Wagner (engineer)

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Herbert Alois Wagner (born May 22, 1900 in Graz , Austria; † May 28, 1982 in Corona del Mar , California) was an Austrian aviation pioneer.

Life

From 1914 to 1917 he attended the Austrian Navy Academy, served as an ensign in the Austrian Navy during World War I , surviving the sinking of his ship after a torpedo hit. He then studied at the Technical University of Charlottenburg , where he received his doctorate in 1923.

In the mid-1920s he worked at Rohrbach Metallflugzeugbau on a new design for flying boats. Here he invented the so-called Wagner carrier, a process for the construction of aircraft components from sheet metal. After a short time as a professor at the Technical University of Berlin, he moved to Junkers Flugzeug- und Motorenwerke , where he worked on the development of aircraft engines and, together with Hans Joachim Pabst von Ohain, played a decisive role in the development of the first jet engines. After differences of opinion with the management, he moved to the Henschel aircraft factory in Berlin. As head of the special section F he introduced Konrad Zuse as indispensable and took him to Henschel.

At Henschel he researched remote-controlled aircraft, began developing glide bombs in July 1940 and completed the Henschel Hs 293 in the winter of 1943/44 . First tests began on August 25, 1943 in the Bay of Biscay against the 40th Support Group and two days later the Sloop Egret was sunk, as was the troop transport Rohna in November .

He also developed the Henschel Hs 117 surface-to-air anti-aircraft missile , called the butterfly .

After the war, as part of Operation Overcast, he came with his blueprints on May 18, 1945 to Frederick (Maryland) , where he supported the United States in developing glide bombs against Japan. He then moved to Point Mugu Naval Air Station and developed missile control mechanisms. After retiring from the civil service, he founded his own technical consultancy, the HA Wagner Company , which he sold to Curtiss-Wright in 1957 .

He returned to Germany at the end of 1957 and became professor of technical mechanics and space technology at the Technical University of Aachen .

His daughter Monica married Willy A. Fiedler for the second time .

Publications

  • About the emergence of dynamic lift of wings ; VDI-Verlag, 1925 ( online at HU-Berlin )
  • with Gotthold Kimm: components of the airplane ; Oldenbourg, Munich 1940
  • with Asmus Hansen: Problems of high-altitude flight: Report on the construction of high-altitude aircraft ; In writings of the German Academy of Aviation Research (German Academy of Aviation Research, Berlin) Vol. 29; 1940

literature

  • Monica Wagner-Fiedler: Herbert Wagner
  • Rudolf Bree: Herbert Wagner seen with my eyes
  • Georg E. Knausenberger: On Herbert Wagner's Activities in the USA
  • Zeitschrift für Flugwissenschaften, Volume 23, 1975, p. 183
  • Karl-Eugen Kurrer : The History of the Theory of Structures. Searching for Equilibrium, Ernst & Sohn 2018, p. 1076f (biography), ISBN 978-3-433-03229-9

Individual evidence

  1. Klaus Knothe: Herbert Wagner's CV on tu-berlin.de ( Memento from August 31, 2010 in the Internet Archive ).
  2. ^ History of Jet Engines . Retrieved September 7, 2011.
  3. ^ Rolf-Dieter Müller, Hans-Erich Volkmann: The Wehrmacht: Myth and Reality , Oldenbourg Wissenschaftsverlag, Munich 1999, p. 388 ( online ).
  4. Zuse: Der Computer- mein Lebenswerk , p. 53 ( online ).
  5. Klaus-Dietmar Henke: The American Occupation of Germany , p. 748 ( online ).
  6. ^ New York Times : Willy A. Fiedler, 89, a Leading Missile Expert , January 29, 1998, accessed September 7, 2011.
  7. ^ German Rocket Scientists . scientistsandfriends.com.