__NOTOC__ The DFS 40 (originally developed as the Delta V) was a tail-less research aircraft designed by Alexander Lippisch in 1937 as a follow-on to his

Delta IV Delta IV is a group of five expendable launch systems in the Delta rocket family introduced in the early 2000s. Originally designed by Boeing's Defense, Space and Security division for the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) program, t ...

aircraft. In construction, the DFS was closer to a

flying wing A flying wing is a tailless fixed-wing aircraft that has no definite fuselage, with its crew, payload, fuel, and equipment housed inside the main wing structure. A flying wing may have various small protuberances such as pods, nacelles, blis ...

than its predecessor, and was built as an alternative to that aircraft. The DFS 40 was flown for the first time by Heini Dittmar in 1939, shortly before Lippisch departed the DFS ('' Deutsche Forschungsanstalt für Segelflug'' - German Research Institute for Sailplane Flight) to begin work at

Messerschmitt Messerschmitt AG () was a German share-ownership limited, aircraft manufacturing corporation named after its chief designer Willy Messerschmitt from mid-July 1938 onwards, and known primarily for its World War II fighter aircraft, in part ...

. Soon afterwards, without Lippisch there to supervise the project, the aircraft was crashed due to an error in

center of gravity In physics, the center of mass of a distribution of mass in space (sometimes referred to as the balance point) is the unique point where the weighted relative position of the distributed mass sums to zero. This is the point to which a force may ...

calculations that resulted in it entering a flat spin during flight.

Specifications (DFS 40)

{{RLM aircraft designations 1930s German experimental aircraft World War II experimental aircraft of Germany Lippisch aircraft DFS 040 Single-engined pusher aircraft Aircraft first flown in 1939 Tailless aircraft