The Secret Of Flight: The Nazi Rocket Scientist Who Taught America to Fly

In 1946, the United States government quietly brought over 1,600 German scientists to America and put them to work. The program was called Operation Paperclip. The most famous recruit was Wernher von Braun, who went on to build the Saturn V rocket that carried Apollo to the Moon. Less famous — but equally remarkable — was Dr. Alexander M. Lippisch. Lippisch was a German aerodynamicist whose important contributions included work on the delta wing, tailless aircraft, and high-performance gliders. In 1946 he immigrated to the United States as part of Operation Paperclip. In 1950 Lippisch began a 14-year tenure with the Collins Radio Corporation, during which time he published scientific papers on his smoke tunnel experiments and aeronautical innovations. In 1955 he created The Secret of Flight film series with the University of Iowa. What Lippisch built in Europe before the war wasn't just theoretical. He was the principal designer of the Messerschmitt Me 163 Komet — the world's first operational rocket-powered combat aircraft, capable of speeds that Allied pilots had never encountered. The aerodynamic principles he developed to make that aircraft fly are the same principles he explains in this series. The series consists of 13 half-hour episodes in which Lippisch uses simple physical models and smoke tunnel videos that allow the viewer to witness the way wings produce lift. No equations. No chalkboard abstractions. Just smoke, airflow, and the quiet authority of a man who had spent forty years watching air move over surfaces and understanding what he saw. This is the preview episode — Episode 1 of 13. It introduces the series, the method, and the man. Subsequent episodes cover the laws of fluid motion, the history of early flight, dynamic lift, stability and control, propulsion, drag, and the story of the vortex.