Rudolf Opitz (pilot)

Paul Rudolf Opitz (born August 9, 1910 in Landeshut, now: Kamienna Góra ; † May 1, 2010 in Stratford (Connecticut) ) was a German glider pilot and test pilot .

Life

Glider and test pilot at DFS

Opitz was born in Landeshut , Silesia, and first learned the carpentry trade after leaving school . He soon discovered his love for gliding. He passed his A-exam in Rossitten , on the Wasserkuppe he was a flight student and thanks to his training he was a tireless repair worker. He was a glider instructor until 1937 and successfully took part in the Rhön competitions. Then he also acquired the engine flight license and switched to DFS . Here he barely survived a crash with Alexander Lippisch's DFS 40 . After that, he was again briefly teacher for gliders and he also participated as a glider pilot on 10 May 1940 in the attack part of the Armed Forces in the West. He managed to land his DFS 230 so precisely that it slid with the last swing onto the bridge that was assigned to him as his target. This was also the only military act in which Opitz took part. For this act he was awarded the German Cross in Gold.

Me 163

From 1941 he was again a test pilot at the Luftwaffe test center in Rechlin and in Peenemünde-West , where he and Heini Dittmar played a key role in testing the Me 163 rocket fighter aircraft . The Me 163A V4, under the leadership of Heini Dittmar, reached a speed of 1003.67 km / h on October 2, 1941, the tow pilot in the Me 110 who brought the rocket plane to altitude was Opitz. After Dittmar was out of action due to a landing accident, he was in phases alone in the series production of the Me 163. The first take-off of the Me 163b with engine took place before many officials of the Third Reich and almost became a disaster when the take-off landing gear broke apart due to a bump in the ground. However, Opitz managed to take off the already damaged and meanwhile very fast aircraft from the skid. There were still many dangerous missile flights to follow. He later trained pilots for use with the rocket fighter. For a while, he was also the commander of Group I of JG 400 on behalf of Wolfgang Spätes . On May 7, 1945, he suffered serious injuries in a landing accident with an Me 163.

Living in the USA

After his recovery, the US Air Force brought Rudi Opitz to the United States in 1946, where he carried out various towing tests, among other things. There he also rebuilt a captured Horten IV and flew very successfully with it in gliding competitions. A photo of this machine is featured on the cover of Reimar Horten's autobiography. In 1955 he became a US citizen and from 1956 worked as a test pilot for jet turbine development at AVCO Lycoming under Dr. Anselm Franz . He was a member of the "Association of Test Pilots". In 1993 he became a member of the " US Glider Flying Hall of Fame " and was awarded the FAI No. 10 International Glider Pilot Achievement Badge in Gold .

He remained connected to glider flying into old age and was on friendly terms with Jim Marske , Al Backstrom , Paul MacCready , Karl Nickel and many others and followed the developments in glider construction and especially with flying wings with interest . Last but not least, he was an important advisor on American literature on the subject of Me 163. Shortly before his 100th birthday, he died in his adopted home Stratford (Connecticut) .

Private

With his then nurse Hanna Boljahn he had a happy marriage into old age, from which two sons emerged. His son Michael later achieved the title of US glider master and also represented the USA internationally at world gliding championships.

literature

• Rudolf Storck among others: Flying Wings . The historical development of the world's tailless and flying wing aircraft. Bernard and Graefe, Bonn 2003, ISBN 3-7637-6242-6 .
• Karl Nickel / Michael Wohlfahrt: Tailless aircraft. Their design and their properties (= flight technology series. Vol. 3). Birkhäuser, Basel et al. 1990, ISBN 3-7643-2502-X (In English: Tailless Aircraft in Theory and Practice. American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Washington DC 1994, ISBN 1-56347-094-2 ).
• Stephen Ransom, Hans-Hermann Cammann: Me 163 Rocket Interceptor Volume 1. ISBN 1-903223-13-X .
• Stephen Ransom, Hans-Hermann Cammann: Me 163 Rocket Interceptor Volume 2. ISBN 978-1-903223-13-0 .
• Reimar Horten, Peter F. Selinger: Nurflügel, the history of the Horten aircraft 1933-1960 . H. Weishaupt Verlag, Graz, ISBN 3-900310-09-2 .
• Wolfgang Späte : The top secret Vogel Me 163. Your pilots, your designers, your missions. Verlag für Wehrwissenschaften, Munich 1983, ISBN 3-89555-142-2 .
• Mano Ziegler : Me 163 rocket fighter, factual report from one of the survivors. Motorbuch Verlag, Stuttgart 1978, ISBN 3-87943-372-0 .

Web links

• Obituary for Opitz at the German Gliding Museum