Robert Lusser

Robert Lusser (born April 19, 1899 in Ulm , † January 19, 1969 in Munich ) was a German stunt pilot , engineer and aircraft developer. Together with Hanns Klemm , Lusser developed the well-known Klemm L 25 , which is the archetype of a modern light aircraft .

Life

Robert Lusser studied electrical engineering at the Technical University of Stuttgart from the winter semester 1919/20. In that semester he also joined the Ghibellinia fraternity in Stuttgart . Lusser finished his studies with a diploma in 1924. This was followed by a job at Leichtflugzeugbau Klemm GmbH, of which he was chief designer from 1927. From 1933 Lusser worked at Messerschmitt , designing the Messerschmitt Bf 108 and shortly afterwards the Messerschmitt Bf 109 . To achieve the world speed record, Lusser designed the Messerschmitt Me 209 and had great success with this machine. The Messerschmitt Bf 110 was also developed by Lusser. He was informed about the work of Hans-Joachim Papst von Ohain on turbo jet engines and worked on the basic features of the Messerschmitt Me 262 .

On June 1, 1939, he came to Heinkel , where he designed the world's first twin-engine fighter, the Heinkel He 280 . The Heinkel He 219 , the first specialized night fighter, also comes from Lusser's development office. However, the design and its variations were initially rejected as too complicated by the Reich Aviation Ministry . Lusser was then terminated by Heinkel.

In 1941 he switched to Fieseler because of the contacts he had made with the developers of turbo jet engines . The design of the Fieseler Fi 103 remote bomb (also called V1) is based on his ideas, which he constructed together with the Fieseler engineer Willy A. Fiedler . Together with Fritz Gosslau from Argus-Werke , he brought the project to series production. In a lecture at a meeting in the Reich Ministry of Aviation, Robert Lussers said on 17./18. June 1943: “Almost exclusively foreigners and women ( forced laborers and prisoners of the concentration camps) can be used to manufacture the device . High-quality skilled workers are only required in a very small percentage. "

His first wife, Hildegard Lusser, mother of five children (Peter, Hans, Gabriele , Hilde and Traute), was killed in a bomb attack on March 13, 1945. In 1948 Lusser married the art teacher Gisela Sautter (* 1914 in Posen). The couple moved to California together and had four children.

post war period

In 1948 Lusser was brought to the USA in connection with Operation Paperclip , initially to Point Mugu to work for the US Navy . He then moved to the Pasadena Jet Propulsion Laboratory and in 1954 finally to Huntsville ( Alabama ), where he worked with Wernher von Braun on the development of the Redstone rocket .

As a result of his research into the reliability of complex systems, especially with regard to rocket development, Lusser is known as the father of reliability . This knowledge is based on his experience with the construction of the Fi 103. His equation R _s = R ₁ · R ₂ ·… · R _n is called Lusser's law . It was developed together with the German mathematician Erich Pieruschka and states that the reliability of an overall system is only as good as the product of the reliability of the individual systems.

In January 1959 Lusser returned to Germany and became Technical Director of the South Development Ring . Based on his findings on the reliability of complex systems, he calculated the unreliability of the F-104 Starfighter , which had been converted into a general-purpose aircraft and nuclear carrier for the newly founded Air Force . Since knowledge about the lack of reliability was politically undesirable, he was blackened, excluded from the work process and his contract was not extended.

1963, on the occasion of a ski vacation with new ski equipment including "safety binding", his Achilles tendon tore during a "trial fall" in the hotel room. During his remaining time at the Entwicklungsring Süd until the end of 1964, he developed a new ski binding and later sold it to Samuel G. Wyss AG in Switzerland . In the time of the “front tight bindings”, it was the first binding that earned the name “safety binding”. The market launch in Germany, Switzerland and Austria and also in the USA was successful. Without being able to witness the success, Robert Lusser died on January 19, 1969 at the age of 69. After a few more years, the bond disappeared from the market. Other ski binding manufacturers followed suit, applying its safety principles.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Well-known Ghibellines - Stuttgarter Burschenschaft Ghibellinia . In: Stuttgarter Burschenschaft Ghibellinia . ( ghibellinen.de [accessed on November 13, 2017]).
2. ↑ Robert LUSSER. Retrieved November 13, 2017 . 
3. ↑ quoted from: Heinz Dieter Hölsken: Die V-Waffen. Origin - propaganda - war effort . Stuttgart 1984 (Studies on Contemporary History, Vol. 27), p. 48.
4. ↑ http://www.oberlandesgericht-celle.niedersachsen.de/portal/live.php?navigation_id=13600&article_id=57353&_psmand=54

literature

• Hans Holzer:  Lusser, Robert. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 15, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1987, ISBN 3-428-00196-6 , p. 534 f. ( Digitized version ).
• Frank Raberg : Biographical Lexicon for Ulm and Neu-Ulm 1802-2009 . Süddeutsche Verlagsgesellschaft im Jan Thorbecke Verlag, Ostfildern 2010, ISBN 978-3-7995-8040-3 , p. 250 .

Movie

• Petra Reinfelder and Benedikt Burkard, directors: Robert Lusser and the "V1" - Hitler's engineer and the "wonder weapon". Documentation, 2008, 45 min.