OBIT: Willy Fiedler, V-1 engineer
Date:
Thu, 29 Jan 1998 12:42:47 -0500
From:
William Carmody

Fiedler died at 89 in Los Altos Hills, California.

He was born in Freudenstadt, Germany, southwest of Stuttgart, where
he
went to study engineering and aeronautical engineering. He became a
test pilot and played a leading role in the development of the V-1.
He
spent 1942 to 1944 at Peenemunde on the Baltic Sea coast, helping
to
test the V-1 missile.

In 1948 he moved to the USA to work on missile development projects
at
the Naval Missile Test Center at Point Mugu, California. These
included work on the Navy’s Loon missile, which was to be launched
from submarines. In 1956, Lockheed hired him, and he worked on the
development of the Polaris ballistic missile. He was particularly
active in the problem of launching ballistic missiles from
submerged
submarines: how to aim them so that they would still be pointing
skyward when they reached the water’s surface.

Bill Carmody carmody@doim6.monmouth.army.mil