The DFS 40 was a tailless research aircraft designed by

Alexander Lippisch Alexander Martin Lippisch (2 November 1894 – 11 February 1976) was a German aeronautical engineer, a pioneer of aerodynamics who made important contributions to the understanding of tailless aircraft, delta wings and the ground effect in aircra ...

as the Delta V in 1937. The DFS 40 was a more advanced design than the previous DFS 39 (

Delta IV Delta IV was a group of five expendable launch systems in the Delta rocket family. It flew 45 missions from 2002 to 2024. Originally designed by Boeing's Defense, Space and Security division for the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) p ...

), and was built for comparison with that aircraft. Where the DFS 39 had a pronounced fuselage with low-mounted wing, the DFS 40 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 ...

, with the wing-fuselage junction blended so that there was no clear dividing line.Alexander M. Lippisch. "Tailless Tailpiece". ''Air Enthusiast''. September 1972. pp.136-138, 50. The DFS 40 was flown for the first time by

Heini Dittmar Heini Dittmar (March 30, 1912 in Bad Kissingen – April 28, 1960 near Mülheim an der Ruhr, West Germany) was a record-breaking German glider pilot. Inspired by the example of his glider flying brother Edgar, Dittmar took an apprenticeship a ...

in 1938, shortly before Lippisch departed the DFS (''

Deutsche Forschungsanstalt für Segelflug The , or DFS , was formed in 1933 to centralise all gliding activity in Germany, under the directorship of Professor Walter Georgii. It was formed by the nationalisation of the Rhön-Rossitten Gesellschaft (RRG) at Darmstadt.Reitsch, H., 1955, ...

'' - 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 parti ...

, taking much of his design team with him. 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 barycenter or balance point) is the unique point at any given time where the weighted relative position of the distributed mass sums to zero. For ...

calculations that resulted in it entering a flat spin during flight. While the test pilot escaped by parachute, the DFS 40 was destroyed.

Specifications (DFS 40)

References

Bibliography

* {{RLM aircraft designations 1930s German experimental aircraft Lippisch aircraft DFS 040 Single-engined pusher aircraft Aircraft first flown in 1939 Tailless aircraft