WWII Aircraft Designers Trivia Quiz

Answer: Reginald Mitchell

Mitchell served his apprenticeship as an engineer in the steam locomotive industry. As chief designer at Supermarine, he designed over 24 aircraft, many of them seaplanes and flying boats such as the Southampton, Stranraer and Walrus. It was his invaluable experience in designing fast, streamlined aircraft to win the Schneider Trophy seaplane races in the 1920s/30s that led to him designing the Spitfire fighter aircraft.

Answer: Walter Blume

Walter Blume earned 28 aerial victories with the Imperial German Air Service during the First World War. After the war, he trained as an aeronautical engineer and, working for Arado, designed the Ar.95 and Ar.96 advanced trainers, and the Ar.68 biplane fighter that was one of the mainstays of the fledgling Luftwaffe before the introduction of the Me.109 in the late 1930s.

It was the revolutionary Ar.234, the result of ten years' work by Blume and his team, for which he earned most plaudits. An extremely streamlined, almost futuristic twin-jet bomber that could reach speeds of 460mph(740km/h), the Ar,234d 'Blitz' saw operations in the last months of WW2. It was famously used in German attempts to destroy the Bridge at Remagen, the last intact crossing over the Rhine in February 1945.

He was one of those German engineers and scientists captured by Soviet forces and spent several years helping to develop military jets for the Soviet Union.

Answer: Sidney Camm

Sir Sidney Camm strides like a colossus across the history of British aeronautical design. Amongst his earlier designs were some of the most advanced biplane fighters of the day, such as the Hawker Fury and Hawker Demon. His Hurricane was the main frontline fighter in RAF service at the beginning of WWII, being responsible for two-thirds of aerial victories in the Battle of Britain. His Typhoon was the most effective ground attack fighter of the war, while his Tempest was one of the fastest piston-engined fighters to see operational service in WWII.

Amazingly, for a man who had designed biplanes in the 1920s, he also oversaw the design of classic jet fighter designs like the Hawker Hunter, the Seahawk and, of course, the Harrier V/STOL 'Jump-jet'.

Answer: Eric Bishop

A bit of trick question, I suppose, but it was Eric Bishop who was chief designer at De Havilland, and he was put in charge of the team formed by Geoffrey de Havilland to pursue the latter's conviction that a fast, unarmed bomber could be a reality.

The result was, of course, the D.H.98 Mosquito, which achieved its startling performance by virtue of its lightweight wooden construction, streamlined shape and powerful Rolls-Royce Merlin engines. The Mosquito began operations as an unarmed bomber, relying on speed as its greatest defence exactly as De Havilland envisioned. Many variations were spawned throughout its career, some of which carried heavy gun armaments in addition to bombs and rockets.

Answer: Gunter

The Gunter brothers were employed at Heinkel Flugzeugwerke from 1931. They designed two aircraft that were important to the development of the Luftwaffe as an aerial force, the He.51 biplane fighter and the He.111 bomber. It was the He.70 mailplane, however, that really put them on the map, as it broke speed records across the world in the mid-1930s. It was this aircraft, as well as the He.178 - the world's first jet aircraft to fly - that alerted the world to Germany's technological advances in aviation.

Walter Gunter was killed in an accident in 1937, but Siegfried went on to lead in the development of all Heinkel's important wartime designs, as well as the postwar Soviet Mig-15 and MiG-19 fighter jets.

Answer: Jiro Horikoshi

Jiro Horikoshi had already established his reputation with several successful designs throughout the 1930s, principally his Mitsubishi A5M carrier-borne fighter - a fast monoplane when most Western naval aviation designs were biplanes.

His A6M caught the Allies by surprise in 1941-42. It was fast, heavily armed, superbly manoeuvrable - a combination of features that most Allied warplanes in the Pacific/SE Asia Theatre lacked at that time. More significantly, its outstanding range of 2,000 miles meant that it was able to support the Japanese advances through the first six months of the Pacific War, turning up in the most unexpected of places and adding to the mythology of this remarkable aircraft.

Answer: False

Willi Messerschmitt's definitive fighter design overcame a series of mishaps at the design trials stages, thanks to his political connections.

Another factor in his favour was his shrewd decision to base the design on his successful Me.108 'Taifun' sports aircraft. This meant that the jigs were already prepared, and readiness for mass production was easier than for Heinkel with their competent but complicated He.112 fighter. With one eye on the progress that the British were making with the Hawker Hurricane, and the French with the Morane-Saulnier MS.405/6, the RLM were keen to get a fast monoplane fighter into service fast!

Answer: Clarence 'Kelly' Johnson

Kelly Johnson was the first team leader of the famous 'Skunk Works', Lockheed's Advanced Design Program, that allowed 'blue sky thinking' to become reality with minimum interference. This has led to several major aeronautical designs, such as the F-104 Starfighter, the U-2 spyplane, SR-71 Blackbird and F-117 Nighthawk.

Johnson had already established his reputation with his work on the Lockheed Electra commercial carrier, plus his development of its military potential with such types as the RAF's Hudson and the PV-1 Ventura. What really cemented his position as one of the most important figures in American aviation was his P-38 fighter, which was the fastest American aircraft during the early part of the war and then his P-80 Shooting Star, the first operational US jet fighter.

Answer: Sergei Ilyushin

Like the German Ju.87's appropriation of the generic term 'Stuka', the Ilyushin Il-2 became synonymous as the 'Sturmovik' (technically a term to describe any attack aircraft). This was because it was the best, the most widely produced, the toughest and most effective 'Sturmovik'.

Sergei Ilyushin was responsible for another important Soviet design, his Il-4 medium bomber, and postwar, his Il-28 jet bomber was an important part of the USSR's inventory. But his Il-2 and its derivatives (Il-2m3, Il-10) were the most-produced of any one aircraft design, at more than 40,000 built.

Answer: Junkers Ju.52/3m

Zindel's Ju.52, with its trimotor layout and corrugated duralumin skin, was one of the most recognisable, ubiquitous and distinctive aircraft of WWII.

Zindel was the Chief Designer at Junkers, becoming the key director of strategy after the arrest of Hugo Junkers, who was regarded as politically subversive by the Nazi regime. Zindel designed many of Junkers commercial designs, some of which had military potential such as the Ju.52 and Ju.90. Although he led the company, he was not directly involved in the later military designs, such as the Ju.87 and Ju.88.

Answer: Alexander Kartveli

Alexander Kartveli arrived in the USA in 1927, after having fled the Bolshevik Revolution and being educated in France. He worked as Chief Designer under Alexander Seversky, a fellow émigré, at the latter's Seversky Aircraft Corporation.

In the mid-1930s Kartveli designed the P-35A, an influential fighter design that saw limited service with the USAAC, but it was after Seversky's departure, within the Republic Aviation Company, that Kartveli really came into his own.

His P-47 was designed around the massive Pratt & Whitney Double Wasp radial engine, which with its supercharger and large propeller, meant that Kartveli designed the largest single-engined fighter of the war. Its operational success meant that, postwar, Kartveli went on to design the F-84 Thunderjet, F-84F Thunderstreak and the F-105 Thunderchief.

Answer: Semyon Lavochkin

Semyon Lavochkin's early fighter designs were in collaboration with Vladimir Gorbunov and Mikhail Gudkov. Their LaGG-1 and LaGG-3 aircraft were competent designs that were better than many of the existing Soviet fighters but, with their underpowered Klimov engines, struggled against the superior performance of the Me.109s and Fw.190s operated by the Luftwaffe.

Following Gorbunov and Gudkov's departure from the Lavochkin Bureau, Lavochkin developed the last design on which he had collaborated with Gorbunov, the LaG-5. Lavochkin upgraded this radial-engined version of the LaGG-3 with fuel injection: the result was the La-5FN, a superlative fighter that was at last able to take on the German Fw.190 and Me.109G on equal terms. It was produced in massive numbers and played a large part in wresting air supremacy away from the Germans. The improved version, the La-7, was one of the finest fighters of the war.

Answer: Frank Whittle

Frank Whittle is regarded as the inventor of jet propulsion. His turbojet engine was fully operational long before the Germans' version at Heinkel, and Whittle had overcome many of the metallurgical and engineering obstacles thrown up by such a feat almost independently, but it was Heinkel who managed to get a jet aircraft into the air first, with the Gunter brothers' He.178 on 27 August, 1939.

Much of Whittle's work on his turbojet, the W.1, and the Gloster E.28/39, an aircraft specifically designed around it, was incorporated into the Meteor, which was to become an extremely robust stalwart in RAF service for many years after the war. The Gloster E.28/39 first flew on 15 May 1941; the Meteor entered service in July 1944. Without Whittle, it is likely neither would have flown at all.

Answer: Robert Noorduyn

Dutch-born Robert Noorduyn had learned his aeronautical engineering skills at the Sopwith Company in England during the First World War, and then with Anthony Fokker back in Holland after the war's end.

His work on the development of the Fokker F.VII brought him to the attention of American companies and, by the early 1930s, he was working in the USA at Bellanca and then Pitcairn-Cierva(US), who specialised in autogiro designs.

In 1934, he set up his own company, Noorduyn Aircraft Ltd., in Canada, where he designed the extremely successful Norseman utility aircraft, a tough and reliable machine that could be operated in the bush terrain on wheels or floats. Its military potential was obvious, and the type was employed in service with the RCAF, USAAF and RAF as a communications aircraft throughout the war.

Answer: Vickers Wellington

Wallis' geodetic airframe design was incorporated into the Wellington, which was the best bomber in service with RAF Bomber Command during the first three years of the war. The Wellesley, a single-engined bomber that set several long-distance records in the late 1930s, was another Vickers aircraft that incorporated it.

The geodetic airframe works rather like a basket-weaving design, whereby spiralling load-bearing frame members intersect on a curving surface, lending the airframe an exceptional integral strength and durability. These were qualities that Wellington crews were often thankful for, since the airframe was able to absorb a lot of battle damage and still fly home.