Who was the better designer of German Aircraft?

[Soundbreaker Welch?]

There are some famous names here, vote for the designer you like best.

 

[seesul]

Kurt Tank for me...

 

[drgondog]

Willy for me. I like two of Tank's designs but Willy developed a broader range of excellent aircraft..

 

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

I am going to go with Willy as well, for the same reasons as Bill stated.

 

[Marcel]

I'm going with Heinkel. His designteam came up with some exelent designs, He112, He100, He111, He177 (apart from the engines) etc. Willy made some brilliant designs, Bf109 and Me262, but that was about it. Too bad Heinkel didn't get a chance with his fighter designs, could have been at least as good as the bf109.

 

[Amsel]

Excellent polling idea.

 

[bigZ]

Kurt Tank for me. A very impressive CV with the transatlantic Condor, FW 189, FW 58, Biplanes, Trainers, Flying boats, Jets and Fighters.

Test pilot and designer.

Half the poll is manufactures rather than designers. So is it which firm designed(and/or manufactured) the best planes or who was the best chief designer?

 

[Kurfürst]

A couple of days ago I saw a photo that expressed my thoughts about Willy Messerschmitt perfectly...

Need to say more? Like Bill said, Messerschmitt's company was responsible for a wide variety of very advanced and successfull aircraft designs, even though Messerschmitt himself was less and less engaged in the actual design work, his philosophy was still there. Also I can't really ignore his skyrocketing career and the heritage he left behind (the Messerschmitt foundation and Messerschmitt-Bölkow-Blohm).

 

[ccheese]

Kurt Tank for me. Excellent range of aircraft.....

Willy had some good aircraft, [4 or 5] but lots of failures......

Failures: me155, bf161, bf162, bf163, me209, me209-II, me261, [3 built]
me264, [2 built] me265, me309, me310 [1 built], me321, me328, me334,
me409, me509, me510, me600, me609. Was the Komet and Gigant
successful ? I think they were both death-traps....

Charles

 

[Chocks away!]

Kurfust do you have any more photos of that airshow? I've been longing to see those two guys gracing the skies together since for ever!

 

[Kurfürst]

Nope I found them on a discussion board a while ago, they are not mine.. :/
Try googling the file name, perhaps it gives something.

 

[GrauGeist]

I'm with Marcel on this one, Heinkel had some notable designs that were world firsts...if politics and circumstances hadn't have intervened in a few cases (mainly being on Udet's bad side), there's no telling how things would have turned out...

I think my favorite Heinkel would be the He280

 

[Soren]

Guys remember that just because an a/c bears the name of the company owner doesn't mean he was the designer of the aircraft

 

[thewritingwriter89]

While I do prefer the 109 as an aircraft, and Messerschmitt as a designer, Kurt Tank does deserve some considerable credit. I think it's interesting that 190 aces amassed a huge number of kills in a relatively short time. Granted, there were masters of the 109, but perhaps the 190 was more "inexperienced pilot" friendly and I think Tank deserves almost as much credit. His Fw-200 must also be credited as being possibly one of the best maritime patrol aircraft of the war. So, in other words, while I love Messerschmitt, Tank deserves a darn close honorable mention.

Another interesting note: Kurt Tank helped test-fly his own designs.

 

[drgondog]

Guys remember that just because an a/c bears the name of the company owner doesn't mean he was the designer of the aircraft

unquestionably true. that being said, 'owner/CEOs' like Willy and Northrup and Rutan reviewed all of them and didn't depend on a Board of Directors to make a decision - and neither one were accountant/financial types like so many current heads of design and manufacturing groups

 

[Timppa]

Hugo Junkers.

-Patented a flying wing air transport concept in 1910. Conceived futuristic flying wings for up to 1,000 passengers; the nearest this came to realization was in the 1931 Junkers G-38 34-seater Grossflugzeug airliner which featured a large thick-chord wing providing space for fuel, engines and two passenger cabins.

- In 1915, he developed the world's first practical all metal aircraft design, the Junkers J 1 "Blechesel". Junkers was also the first fully cantilevered monoplane ? (at least one of metal construction)

-1919 First civilian all-metal aircraft F13 flies

Second choice would have been Kurt Tank. AFAIK the only combat aircraft designer who actually actively flew his designs.

 

[Ferdinand Foch]

Well, I have to say Kurt Tank for this poll. I know the Focke-Wulf wasn't the best fighter in the war, but it did deliver a painful headache to the Allied High Command when it initially came out. Though personally, I would probably chose a P-51D over a Focke-Wulf anyday (maybe a later version of the Spitfire too, but I'm not sure in that regard).

 

[Vassili Zaitzev]

Well, I have to say Kurt Tank for this poll. I know the Focke-Wulf wasn't the best fighter in the war, but it did deliver a painful headache to the Allied High Command when it initially came out. Though personally, I would probably chose a P-51D over a Focke-Wulf anyday (maybe a later version of the Spitfire too, but I'm not sure in that regard).

That may be true, but don't forget the 190 had a lot more firepower then the P-51.

I voted for Willy, because I'm partial to the 109.

 

[SoD Stitch]

I voted for the Horten Bros.; their designs were way ahead of their time, even for Germany. I don't know how practical their designs were (we never had a chance to find out), but they were definitely extremely advanced; unfortunately, they ran into a lot of beauracratic headwinds. A good example of this is the hassle they ran into when submitting their approved design for an all-wing "Amerikabomber" in early 1945 (the Ho XVIII); Goering approved the initial proposal, but then turned the design over to a consortium of the other a/c designers, who proceeded to ruin the Horten's original clean design by sticking extra vertical stabilizers on top of the craft (the original design had no vertical surfaces), and hanging the engines on the bottom of the a/c, instead of having them buried in the wing where they would produce much less drag. Go here for the Luft '46 online article on the Ho XVIII.

 

[Soren]

unquestionably true. that being said, 'owner/CEOs' like Willy and Northrup and Rutan reviewed all of them and didn't depend on a Board of Directors to make a decision - and neither one were accountant/financial types like so many current heads of design and manufacturing groups

Fully agreed, just wanted to point out that little fact