Woldemar Voigt (engineer)

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Woldemar Voigt (* 10. February 1907 in Münster ; † 22. June 1980 in Towson 4, MD, USA ) was a German aircraft - engineer , who was instrumental in developing the first jet-propelled aircraft at the time of the Third Reich was involved. His paternal grandfather was the physicist Woldemar Voigt .

Life

Voigt studied at the Technical University in Darmstadt and was a member of the Academic Aviation Group ( Akaflieg ). He worked at Klemm on the development of the Kl 35 and later at Siebel on the Si 202a Hummel . In 1933 he switched to Bayerische Flugzeugwerke as a project engineer . In the company operating under the name Messerschmitt AG since the summer of 1938 , he succeeded Robert Lusser, who had switched to Heinkel, as head of the project department in 1939 . Since October 1938, this department has been working on various studies for single and twin-engine fighter aircraft. The Me 262 emerged from the P.1065 design . In the further years of the war he was also responsible as project manager for the construction of the Me 264 , Me 328 and Me 163 . In October 1943 the development department was relocated to Oberammergau and was given the code name Oberbayerische Forschungsanstalt . By the end of the war, a number of project drafts were drawn up there under the direction of Voigt.

The as yet unfinished prototype of the P.1101 proved to be of particular interest to the Americans , which was transferred to the USA and developed there into the first swing-wing aircraft, the Bell X-5 . North American used the results of the development department with regard to an optimized wing shape for high-speed aircraft when designing the XP-86 . For this purpose, the investigations of the project HG II (high-speed program II) were used, in which the Me 262 was to be equipped with different wings. Flight tests were no longer carried out, but the results of the wind tunnel tests could be used in the XP-86 development with regard to the optimal sweep and the use of automatic slats.

In 1945 Voigt was one of the scientists who came to the USA as part of Operation Paperclip . He was probably involved in the development of the X-5 there. A participation in development work of the company Vought , especially with the Vought F7U Cutlass , which is sporadically claimed in the literature , can, however, largely be ruled out.

literature

  • Peter Schmoll: The Messerschmitt Works in World War II. The aircraft production of Messerschmitt GmbH Regensburg from 1938 to 1945 , MZ-Verlag Regensburg, 2004, ISBN 3-931904-38-5 .
  • W. Radinger, W. Schick: Messerschmitt secret projects. Aviatic Verlag, Oberhaching 1991, ISBN 3-925505-14-8 .
  • Heinz J. Nowarra : The German Air Armament 1933-1945. Bernard & Graefe Verlag, Koblenz 1993, ISBN 3-7637-5464-4 .
  • Wolfgang Wagner: The world's first jet aircraft , Bernard & Graefe Verlag Koblenz, 1989, ISBN 3-7637-5297-8 .
  • J. Richard Smith & Eddie J. Creek: Me 262 Concepts and Development , Heel Verlag GmbH, 1999, ISBN 3-89365-784-3 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Wolfgang Wagner, The First Jet Airplanes, p. 161
  2. ↑ Wolfgang Wagner, The First Jet Airplanes, p. 111
  3. ↑ Ralf Schabel: The illusion of miracle weapons: the role of jet planes and anti-aircraft missiles in the armaments policy of the Third Reich (=  contributions to military and war history . Volume 35 ). Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Munich 1994, ISBN 3-486-55965-6 , p. 316 ( limited preview in Google Book Search).
  4. ↑ Hans-Ulrich Meier: The arrow wing development in Germany until 1945 , Bernard & Graefe Verlag, 2006, p. 307, 436 f.
  5. ↑ Paper published by Brigham Young University on the participants in Operation Paperclip (PDF; 114 kB)
personal data
SURNAME Voigt, Woldemar
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German aircraft construction engineer
DATE OF BIRTH February 10, 1907
PLACE OF BIRTH Muenster
DATE OF DEATH June 22, 1980
Place of death Towson , USA