Woldemar Voigt (10 February 1907 – June 1980) was a German aerospace engineer, who was responsible for some of the advanced

swept wing A swept wing is a wing angled either backward or occasionally forward from its root rather than perpendicular to the fuselage. Swept wings have been flown since the pioneer days of aviation. Wing sweep at high speeds was first investigated in Ge ...

German jet-powered aircraft at the end of

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

Early life

His grandfather was the German physicist

Woldemar Voigt Woldemar Voigt (; 2 September 1850 – 13 December 1919) was a German mathematician and physicist. Biography Voigt was born in Leipzig, and died in Göttingen. He was a student of Franz Ernst Neumann. Voigt taught at the Georg August Universi ...

(1850-1919), known for Voigt notation, Voigt profile and the Voigt effect, and who introduced the term

tensor In mathematics, a tensor is an algebraic object that describes a multilinear relationship between sets of algebraic objects associated with a vector space. Tensors may map between different objects such as vectors, scalars, and even other ...

in 1898. He was born in February 1907 in

Göttingen Göttingen (, ; ; ) is a college town, university city in Lower Saxony, central Germany, the Capital (political), capital of Göttingen (district), the eponymous district. The River Leine runs through it. According to the 2022 German census, t ...

; he was the oldest of four brothers. His father was Karl Voigt (1879–1965). He studied at technical high school in

Darmstadt Darmstadt () is a city in the States of Germany, state of Hesse in Germany, located in the southern part of the Frankfurt Rhine Main Area, Rhine-Main-Area (Frankfurt Metropolitan Region). Darmstadt has around 160,000 inhabitants, making it the ...

, in the south of

Hesse Hesse or Hessen ( ), officially the State of Hesse (), is a States of Germany, state in Germany. Its capital city is Wiesbaden, and the largest urban area is Frankfurt, which is also the country's principal financial centre. Two other major hist ...

Career

Klemm

He worked for Klemm, designing the Klemm Kl 35.

Messerschmitt

He joined

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 ...

, in

Bavaria Bavaria, officially the Free State of Bavaria, is a States of Germany, state in the southeast of Germany. With an area of , it is the list of German states by area, largest German state by land area, comprising approximately 1/5 of the total l ...

, in 1933. He was the project leader for the designs of the

Messerschmitt Me 264 The Messerschmitt Me 264 was a long-range strategic bomber developed during World War II for the Nazi Germany, German ''Luftwaffe'' as its main strategic bomber. The design was later selected as Messerschmitt's competitor in the ''Reich Air Min ...

(four-engined bomber), Messerschmitt Me 328, and the infamous rocket-engined

Messerschmitt Me 163 Komet The Messerschmitt Me 163 Komet is a rocket-powered interceptor aircraft primarily designed and produced by the German aircraft manufacturer Messerschmitt. It is the only operational rocket-powered fighter aircraft in history as well as ...

. He oversaw the design of the swept-wing Messerschmitt P.1101 jet fighter, which was never built (by the Germans), but provided a valued contribution to early American swept-wing jet fighters. From October 1938, Messerschmitt had been looking at designs for jet fighter aircraft. He was head of the Projects Department from 1939. At Messerschmitt, other designers included Wolfgang Degel. In October 1943, the Messerschmitt design department moved to

Oberammergau Oberammergau is a municipality in the district of Garmisch-Partenkirchen, in Bavaria, Germany. The small town on the Ammer River is known for its woodcarvers and woodcarvings, for its NATO School, and around the world for its 380-year tradition of ...

in southern Bavaria, on the Austrian border. The

NATO School The NATO School Oberammergau in southern Germany is NATO's key training facility on the operational level. The School started with two courses in 1953 and now offers over 100 different courses to Alliance members and partners on subjects relate ...

has been on the site since 1953.

Vought

After the war, Voight was relocated to the United States via the

Operation Paperclip The Operation Paperclip was a secret United States intelligence program in which more than 1,600 German scientists, engineers, and technicians were taken from former Nazi Germany to the US for government employment after the end of World War I ...

. He went to work for the American aircraft company

Vought Vought was the name of several related American aerospace firms. These have included, in the past, Lewis and Vought Corporation, Chance Vought, Vought-Sikorsky, LTV Aerospace (part of Ling-Temco-Vought), Vought Aircraft Companies, and Vought ...

, with one of his first designs being the

Vought F7U Cutlass The Vought F7U Cutlass is a United States Navy aircraft carrier, carrier-based fighter aircraft, jet fighter and fighter-bomber designed and produced by the aircraft manufacturer Vought, Chance Vought. It was the first tailless aircraft, tailles ...

, which was developed from German scientists' data on swept-wing jet aircraft.

Personal life

He married Clara Hollerung (born 12 September 1911) in 1935. He died in June 1980 in America, aged 73. He had lived in

Annapolis, Maryland Annapolis ( ) is the capital of the U.S. state of Maryland. It is the county seat of Anne Arundel County and its only incorporated city. Situated on the Chesapeake Bay at the mouth of the Severn River, south of Baltimore and about east ...

References

External links

Family tree
{{DEFAULTSORT:Voigt, Woldemar 1907 births 1980 deaths German aerospace engineers German emigrants to the United States Messerschmitt people Messerschmitt Me 262 People from Annapolis, Maryland Scientists from Göttingen Vought Engineers from Lower Saxony