Willy Messerschmitt was born in 1898 in Frankfurt am Main. Passionate about aviation, he worked from 1913 with a glider specialist, Friedrich Harth.
During the First World War, Messerschmitt worked alone on the S5 glider, an aircraft that Harth had not had time to finish following his incorporation. In 1917, the young Messerschmitt joined the army and then went back to work on new models. He studied at the Technical University of Munich but continued his collaboration with Friedrich Harth.
In 1921, his S9 glider made its first flight:it was the first aircraft entirely designed by Messerschmitt. The S9 is followed by other prototypes which experience technical setbacks.
He studied engineering at the Munich Institute of Technology, from which he graduated in 1923.
During his first flight in 1925, Messerschmitt crashed his M17 and spent some time in the hospital. In March 1926, Messerschmitt founded the company Flugzeugbau Messerschmitt GmbH in Bamberg partly financed by the Bavarian government. Messerschmitt works on the M18, an all-metal commercial aircraft.
Wilhelm Emil Messerschmitt (26 June 1898 in Frankfurt am Main – 15 September 1978 in Munich) was a German aeronautical engineer . He was the designer of the Messerschmitt Bf 109, the main German fighter of the Luftwaffe during the Second World War (read Le Grand Cirque de Pierre Clostermann).
Summary
Messerschmitt was persuaded by the Bavarian authorities to merge his company into the already existing Bayerische Flugzeugwerke (BFW) in September 1927. He then joined the firm, located in Augsburg, as principal designer (head of the design office).
Lufthansa buys 10 M20 type aircraft but two of them crash and the company cancels the purchase of additional copies. Other buyers are skeptical of the many problems encountered with M-type aircraft.
The BFW enters the red figures and goes bankrupt in 1931. Messerschmitt continues to work independently. In 1933, the BFW was founded again and Messerschmitt worked from 1934 on a new commercial aircraft, the Messerschmitt Bf 108 Taifun.
Encouraged by the enthusiasm generated by the Bf 108, especially among many officers of the new Luftwaffe, the Bayerische team decided to respond to the competition for the new fighter published in early 1934, asking for a fast monoplane fighter armed a pair of 7.92 mm caliber machine guns. The aircraft must be able to accommodate the new engines developed by Junkers and Daimler-Benz. In 1935, despite Milch's opposition, the Bayerische Flugzeugwerke was finally allowed to participate in the competition. She responded with an aircraft, the Bf 109A, whose prototype, the Bf 109 V1 (V for Versuchsflugzeug, prototype), flew in September 1935. This aircraft was sent to the Luftwaffe test center in Rechlin.
The prototype, at the start, did not provoke the enthusiasm of the test pilots who regretted its narrow and fragile undercarriage and its steep inclination when rolling which made it dangerous, as well as its heavy wing loading, its very narrow cockpit and completely closed. But the tests advancing the pilots quickly change their minds, the plane proving to be very fast and agile once in the air. Meanwhile, Arado and Focke-Wulf have abandoned the competition and only the Bf 109 and the Heinkel He 112 remain in the race; the first being considered to be clearly superior, the RLM then ordered a pre-series of 10 aircraft of each type. A fighter-bomber variant, the Bf-110, is born but proves to be disappointing by its lack of autonomy.
During this time, Messerschmitt came into conflict with Erhard Milch, former director of Deutsche Lufthansa, who had meanwhile become the minister at the head of the Reichsluftfahrtministerium (RLM), the all-powerful German air ministry. Milch can't forget one of the M-20 accidents in which a friend of his lost his life. Milch refuses that the mandate of the government be entrusted to Messerschmitt. Milch had also forced the bankruptcy of BFW in 1931. But Messerschmitt has a long arm:he knows Rudolf Hess and Theo Croneiss, a close friend of Hermann Göring.
Milch's power wanes in favor of World War I ace Ernst Udet. The Bf 109 was then adopted by the Luftwaffe, which thus had the best fighter plane in the world. During the Second World War, the Bf 109 was improved to counter the growing supremacy of the British Spitfire and then the American P-51.
Messerschmitt also works from the beginning of the conflict on a jet plane, the Me 262. The program was delayed by the slowness of the development of the engines. The plane flew with a piston engine from April 1941 but it was not until July 1942 that it was flown with jet engines. The first experimental unit was only formed on June 30, 1944 and the first operational unit in September. These delays prevent Messerschmitt's jet plane from having a decisive influence on the continuation of the conflict.
In parallel, the engineer designed another plane to replace the Stuka:the Me 210 based on the Me 110 from 1934. But this plane was a complete failure:the prototypes were defective and often crashed. This episode damages the reputation of Messerschmitt until the end of the war since he is unable to propose an aircraft capable of countering the De Havilland Mosquito of the British.
Messerschmit is also at the origin of a huge transport plane, the Me 321 which could transport more than 130 men. The war is very prolific in terms of ideas such as the Me 264 project, a bomber intended to bomb the United States; however, the German defeat prevented it from seeing the light of day. Another atypical aircraft, the Me 163 Komet must be propelled with rockets but this revolutionary project falls just like the Me 264.
After the war, Messerschmitt was arrested and tried for using forced laborers and prisoners in his business. This passes into the hands of the Allies, becoming Messerschmitt-Werke. It will merge in 1966 with Flugzeug-Union-Süd (which had previously absorbed the former Junkers and Heinkel factories) to become in 1969 MBB.
Messerschmitt was imprisoned for two years and upon his release, he launched into non-aeronautical products such as the KR 175 two-seater vehicle, Germany being initially no longer authorized to build aircraft, except gliders . (The aeronautical activity will not really resume in Germany until the remilitarization in 1956 with the manufacture under license of the Noratlas).
He was then at the origin of some aircraft models in Spain such as the Hispano Aviacion HA-200 and HA 300 jets, competitors of the Fouga Magister. With Ludwig Bölkow and Heinkel he built within Entwicklungsring Süd, also absorbed by MBB) the vertical take-off aircraft VJ 101 C.
He founded the foundation that bears his name (Messerschmitt-Stiftung).
In 1970 he retired and died in 1978.