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Me 163B rocket-powered interceptor captured in action by a gun camera carried by a USAAF P-51. USAF via Bill Rose A drawing of Stasinos flying disc aircraft model ] circa 1950. Bill Rose references to the letters and numbers on the fuselage. According to a story originating with UPlin the 1950s, the model was passed to Rip- ley’s Believe It or Not Museum in New York. However, Ripley Entertainment’s senior archivist Edward Meyer recently stated that the model is not held at any of the company’s museums and nobody recalls ever having seen it. What became of the 2ft 6in (7.62m) diameter model is unknown. Lippisch Heel-Shaped Aircraft During September 1909 a fourteen-year-old German aviation enthusiast called Alexander Martin Lippisch (1894-1976) watched a flight made by Orville Wright in Berlin. This experi- ence had a profound effect on his thinking and, after returning from military service dur- ing World War One, Lippisch joined Zeppelin where he served an apprenticeship and then moved to Dornier as a designer. In his spare time Lippisch worked on plans for tailless gliders and Gottlob Espenlaub built his first full-sized design in 1921. Lippisch continued to investigate flying wings, developing the first delta designs having coined the term ‘delta’ for this shape. He took the name from the three-sided Greek letter delta, which is actu- revolutionary Me 163B Komet flying wing and began to consider the possibility of ally a triangle. rocket-powered interceptor. Dr Lippisch left designing a successor to the Me 163B that In 1940 Lippisch was assigned to Messer- _ the programme in 1942, becoming director of would combine ramjet propulsion with the schmitt where he headed ‘Section L’ and — the Luftfahrtforschungsanstalt Wien (Aero- delta wing to provide supersonic perfor- used his considerable expertise to design the _ nautical Research Institute at Vienna: LFW) mance. revolutionary Me163B Komet flying wing and began to consider the possibility of rocket-powered interceptor. Dr Lippisch left designing a successor to the Me 163B that the programme in 1942, becoming director of | would combine ramjet propulsion with the the Luftfahrtforschungsanstalt Wien (Aero- delta wing to provide supersonic perfor- nautical Research Institute at Vienna: LFW) mance. mance. 85 A drawing of Stasinos flying disc aircraft model circa 1950. Bill Rose Postwar image of aerodynamicist Alexander Lippisch. via Bill Rose Postwar Discplane Development