Joachim P. Kuettner

Joachim P. Kuettner , also Joachim Küttner (born September 21, 1909 in Breslau ; † February 24, 2011 in Boulder (Colorado) ) was a German-American physicist.

Career

Mercury Redstone rocket in the Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC), far left Kuettner

After studying physics in Darmstadt and Helsinki, Kuettner received his doctorate in Hamburg in 1939, “On the Origin of the Foehn Wave”. As an aviation pioneer in 1937, as part of his scientific investigations, he undertook adventurous research and record flights in an unknown type of updraft - in lee waves that form in the lee of the Giant Mountains and are indicated by Moazagotl clouds.

Further records followed:

• September 14, 1937: Wave flight up to 23,000 ft (approx. 7,000 m) without oxygen - unofficial world altitude record in a glider (canceled when Kuettner was on the threshold of unconsciousness)
• 1951: World altitude record 38,000 ft (approx. 11,600 m) in a two-seater glider with Bob Symons
• April 14, 1955: German altitude record of 13,015 m in a glider ( Swiss SGS 2-25 ) as part of the Jetstream Project, still valid German altitude record

He was a test pilot and engineer at Dornier , Messerschmitt and Zeppelin and flew 45 types of aircraft during this time. Among other things, he was in charge of flight testing of the Messerschmitt Me 323 "Gigant".

After the war he rebuilt the Zugspitze meteorological weather station and headed it for three years. He researched thunderstorms and wrote his habilitation thesis.

In 1948 Kuettner went to the Geophysical Research Directorate in Cambridge ( Massachusetts ), in 1951 to the University of California . From 1958 Kuettner worked at the Marshall Space Flight Center of NASA in Huntsville . There he became Centers Director of the Mercury program , the first time Americans flew into space.

He then became director of the Apollo System Office within the Apollo program . His responsibility included the integration of the Saturn V rocket with the Apollo spacecraft in the course of the moon landing . From 1965 he was chief scientist at the National Satellite Center in Washington, from 1967 division manager at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in Boulder , Colorado . In 1972 he was appointed by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) as the international director of large-scale experiments within the framework of the Global Atmospheric Research Program (including the Global Atlantic Tropical Experiment with participants from 70 nations, 39 ships and 13 research aircraft).

From 1993 Kuettner worked at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) and the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR) in Boulder.

Kuettner published about 140 publications in the field of atmospheric physics and aerospace.

Awards

• Gold Medal from the Royal Geographical Society (RGS)
• Lilienthal Medal of the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI)
• US Department of Commerce (NOAA) Gold Medal
• Cleveland-Abbe Award from the American Meteorological Society (AMS)
• Alfred Wegener Medal of the German Meteorological Society (DMG)
• Julius von Hann Medal of the Austrian Meteorological Society
• OSTIV plaque of the Organization Scientifique et Technique International du Vol à Voile (OSTIV)
• Tuntland Research Award from Soaring Society of America (SSA)
• Honorary Doctor of Science from the University of Colorado (1999)
• Honorary doctorate from the Faculty of Physics at the University of Munich (1999)
• Honorary membership of the DMG and the AMS
• On March 30, 2010, the German President Horst Köhler awarded him the Cross of Merit 1st Class of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany

Küttner Prize

In 1987 he donated the "Küttner Prize" named after him and endowed with $ 10,000 for long-distance glider flights over 2000 km in a straight line, which Klaus Ohlmann ( Mountain Wave Project ) won on November 23, 2003 with a flight of 2123 km from El Calafate to San Juan along the Argentine Andes won.

As a result, in 2004, on the initiative of Joachim Kuettner , the OSTIV announced a new Küttner Prize for a sailing flight over 2500 km in a straight line. The new Küttner Prize consists of a sculpture with the engraved name of the pilot and the flight details, and is endowed with 10,000 US dollars.

literature

• Klaus Weg: The history of the Zugspitze weather station . With contributions by Joachim P. Kuettner and Ludwig Weickmann. German Weather Service, Offenbach am Main 2000.
• A. Dörnbrack, R. Heise, JP Kuettner: Shafts and rotors . (PDF; 540 kB) In: promet . 32 (1-2), 2006, pp. 18-24.
• Joachim Kuettner: The rotor flow in the lee of mountains . (PDF; 5.8 MB) Research Note 6, Geophysics Research Directorate, Air Force Cambridge Research Center, 1959.

Web links

• Celebration of a Renaissance Man: The Joachim Kuettner Symposium (English)
• High Altitude Record (13,015 m) - Pilot Report
• To Explorer's Life . UCAR-Magazine, March 7, 2011 (English)
• Obituary for Joachim P. Kuettner . (PDF; 106 kB) Institute for Atmospheric Physics (English)

Individual evidence

1. ^ Announcements of the German Meteorological Society , 2/2000
2. ↑ RBB science report Rodeo in the sky
3. ↑ ^{a b c} Gerhard Marzinzik: Glider pilot and scientist . In: Aerokurier , 04/2011, p. 127
4. ↑ German gliding records. Deutscher Aero Club , December 1, 2007, accessed September 15, 2009 . 
5. ^ Announcements of the German Meteorological Society , 3/2000
6. ^ R. Heise, M. Reinhardt, PF Selinger: Joachim P. Kuettner - aviation pioneer, record pilot and meteorologist . (PDF) In: Magazin Segelfliegen , January / February, 2012
7. ↑ With 4,000 men to the cloud show . In: Der Spiegel . No. 22 , 1974 ( online ).
8. ↑ Interview with Dr. Joachim P. Kuettner. (PDF; 2.2 MB) (No longer available online.) WMO Bullentin Interviews 1989, archived from the original on August 11, 2011 ; Retrieved February 8, 2011 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
9. ↑ Curriculum Vitae by Joachim P. Kuettner ( Memento from July 1, 2014 in the Internet Archive )
10. ↑ Dr. Joachim Kuettner Receives Officer's Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany. (No longer available online.) Consulate General Los Angeles, formerly original ; Retrieved May 20, 2010 .  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.    
11. ↑ DAeC: Federal Cross of Merit for Dr. Joachim P. Küttner. (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on May 14, 2010 ; Retrieved May 12, 2010 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
12. ^ OSTIV information. Retrieved September 17, 2009 . 
13. ^ Regina Zibell: Küttner record flight interview on Deutschlandradio. (MP3; 4.1 MB) November 23, 2003, accessed March 15, 2009 . 
14. ^ Klaus Ohlmann: Story of Klaus' Küttner Flight. (No longer available online.) November 23, 2003, formerly in the original ; Retrieved September 17, 2009 .  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.    
15. ↑ OSTIV newsletter , 1/2011