Seamlessly jumping from the German war machine into the American one, Alexander Lippisch pioneered the jet age. Perhaps for him there were no ethics, only technics.It was the image of his aircraft that would exemplify the sinister Nazi forces in the Forties and defence of freedom in the Fifties. It would be the factories malls airfields colleges and offices for Californian defence industries and their workers which would inspire new brutalisms manifestations at least as much as the purity of constructivism and the bauhaus.

In 1939 he and his staff joined Messerschmitt A. G. in Augsburg, Germany for the development of a high speed, rocket propelled experimental aircraft, known as the ME 163A.The considerable success of the experimental plane led to the production version, the ME 163B interceptor which was the fastest aircraft flown in WW II. It could climb from a dead start to 40,000 feet in 3.25 minutes and it set the world speed record for aircraft, over 1145 KPH, in 1941 with Heinie Dittmar at the controls. The record setting flight remained a secret throughout the war.

In 1945, Dr. Lippisch was in the custody of the Air Technical Intelligence branch of the U. S. Army Air Force, .Dr. Lippisch was transferred, along with his senior staff, under the Defense Department’s “Project Paper Clip”, to Wright Field, Ohio. program, run by the newly formed U. S. Air Force and Navy Liaison Office assembled and transplanted German scientists, including Dr. Wernher von Braun, from the Allied Zones of Germany to the U. S. for further debriefing. During that time he also consulted for several U. S. Aircraft companies, Convair in particular, ultimately resulting in the development and production of the first U. S. Air Force delta fighter, the F102A Delta Dagger.

Time/Life magazine advertisement for the new Convair delta-wing fighters. Residents in air base areas were invited to think of the increase in jet noise as their part in defending freedom.