Ludwig Boelkow, who helped develop WWII fighter jet, dies at 91
10:29 AM EDT Jul 28
MELISSA EDDY
FRANKFURT (AP) - Ludwig Boelkow, a German flight engineer who helped develop the first fighter jet used during the Second World War as well as the European-made Airbus jets has died, the European Aeronautic Defence & Space Co. said Sunday. He was 91.
Boelkow died Friday evening in Munich, the company said in a statement, but gave no cause of death. Bavarian radio reported that Boelkow suffered from a heart attack. The report could not be immediately confirmed. "Ludwig Boelkow shaped the airline industry in postwar Germany like no one else," the co-chairmen of the European Aeronautic Defence & Space Co, Rainer Hetrich and Philippe Camus, said in a statement. "More than anything, Ludwig Boelkow is one of the fathers of Airbus."
Born in the northeastern German city of Schwerin on June 30, 1912, Boelkow began working at airplane company Messerschmitt in 1939. There, he helped develop the first jet fighter, the Me-262, that was used by the Nazis during the Second World War.
After the war, Boelkow remained in Germany and in 1958 founded Boelkow GmbH. Later the company became part of the Munich-based air and defence company Messerschmitt-Boelkow-Blohm, MBB, which since 2000 has been part of EADS, which owns 80 per cent of Airbus Industrie.
In 1966, Boelkow founded a German Airbus Studio that he took with him to the Paris Airshow at Le Bourget, for the first time suggesting a Franco-German, or even a European consortium could build an airliner to rival U.S.-made jets.
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