Richard Vogt (aircraft designer)
Richard Vogt ( born December 19, 1894 in Schwäbisch Gmünd, † January 1979 in Santa Barbara, California, United States) was a German engineer and aircraft designer.
Life
Richard Vogt was born the seventh of twelve children and went in Stuttgart- Cannstatt to school. There he was able to observe, among other things first flight trials of Ernst Heinkel. This led, together with a friend to a first own aircraft design, which he tried unsuccessfully with police approval in 1912 on the Mutlanger Heath. After graduation, he spent a year working at a machine factory in Ludwigshafen. After being wounded in World War I, he was at his own request, a pilot training in Halberstadt. After his release in August 1916, he met at the Zeppelin works in Friedrichshafen with Claude Dornier, who promoted him. After the war he completed within two years of study at the Technische Hochschule in Stuttgart and was subsequently to 1922 Assistant Professor Baumann at the Institute of Aeronautics and Automotive Engineering. There he applied for his first patent and completed his doctoral thesis.
On behalf of Claude Dornier He then went briefly to Italy and then from 1923 to 1933 to Kawasaki to Kobe in Japan, built the Dornier aircraft under license. There he was finally chief engineer and had several aircraft designed ( Type 92 biplane fighter, KDA -2 biplane reconnaissance (1927, 707 St.gebaut ), KDA -3 single-seat fighter (1928 ), KDA-5/Typ 92 -I biplane fighter aircraft ( 1932 built with Takeo Doi, 380 St. ) ). His successor was trained by him with Takeo Doi (土井 武夫), which later became the Ki-61 Hien designed.
In 1933, he received, among other things, Blohm & Voss the offer to act as chief designer. His second draft there was the Ha 137 with him later typical continuous tubular spar with integrated fuel tank. The BV 138 Ha 139 Ha 140, BV 141 and BV 222 flying boats and BV 238 are formed there under his leadership and substantial participation. The draft P 200 for an eight -engine flying boat of 8,000 km range could not be realized. However, his design for the high-altitude fighter BV 155 could start in late 1944 or early 1945 for its first flight. Various jet fighter designs remained in the drawing board stage.
After the war he was first questioned by the British, but then ordered at short notice by the U.S. Air Force as part of Operation Paperclip and brought to the United States, where he from the beginning of the year 1947-1954 as a civilian employee for the Research Laboratory of the Air Force in Dayton (Ohio ) worked. He then became chief designer of the Aero Physics Development Corporation until their business tasks in 1960. Starting from August 1960 to August 1966 he was a member of George Schairer in the research and testing division of Boeing. There he dealt, inter alia, to with vertical takeoff and hydrofoil boats, his last assignment was the recalculation of the Boeing 747- interpretation. In his retirement, he worked on the invention of a capsizing boat sailing and wrote his memoirs. A fire in 1977 destroyed his house with the most personal and many technical documents. In January 1979, he died of a heart attack.
Richard Vogt was married and had two sons.
In Schwäbisch Gmünd district Rehnenhof - Wetzgau the Richard Vogt- trail is named after him.