Birthing the American Delta and Swept Wing

The extent to which the swept wing permeated German aeronauti­cal thought understandably engendered tremendous postwar interest

A sampling of various design concepts for Lippisch swept wing and delta aircraft. These orig­inal Lippisch sketches were incorporated in "German Aircraft: New and Projected Types,” a 1946 Allied technical intelligence summary. USAF.

in the benefits of swept planforms for transonic and supersonic flight within the American, European, and Soviet aeronautical communi­ties.[10] However, for America, uncovering German swept wing research and development furnished the confirmation of its value, not its discovery, for Robert T Jones, an aerodynamicist at the Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory, had independently discovered its benefits in 1944, a year before the Allies first entered Germany’s shattered and shut­tered research laboratories and design shops.[11]