LIPPISCH, ALEXANDER M(ARTIN)

born Nov. 2, 1894, Munich died Feb. 11, 1976, Cedar Rapids, Iowa, U.S. German-American aerodynamicist whose designs of tailless and delta-winged aircraft in the 1920s and 1930s were important in the development of high-speed jet and rocket airplanes. Lippisch designed the world's first successful rocket-propelled airplane (a tailless glider fitted with two solid-fuel rockets, flown June 11, 1928, in the Rhn Mountains, Germany) and was largely responsible for the first operational liquid-fuel rocket aircraft (the Messerschmitt Me 163 Komet fighter, first used by the Luftwaffe in 1944). After World War II Lippisch moved to the United States and in 1965 established the Lippisch Research Corporation, Cedar Rapids, Iowa. He was an early proponent of the delta-wing configuration.