George Spangenberg (June 22, 1912November 13, 2000) was head of aircraft design in the

United States Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage ...

s Naval Air Systems Command. He participated in the design and development of the original

VFX Visual effects (sometimes abbreviated VFX) is the process by which imagery is created or manipulated outside the context of a live-action shot in filmmaking and video production. The integration of live-action footage and other live-action foota ...

F-14 Tomcat The Grumman F-14 Tomcat is an American carrier-capable supersonic aircraft, supersonic, twinjet, twin-engine, two-seat, twin-tail, variable-sweep wing fighter aircraft. The Tomcat was developed for the United States Navy's Naval Fighter Experi ...

, and selection of the YF-17 and design of the

F/A-18 Hornet The McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet is an all-weather, twinjet, twin-engine, supersonic aircraft, supersonic, carrier-based aircraft, carrier-capable, Multirole combat aircraft, multirole combat aircraft, designed as both a Fighter aircraft, ...

for the US Navy. He has posted memoirs of this experiences on the web of how the

was designed to rectify the lack of maneuverability and performance of the F-111B. Jim Foster, a U.S. Navy fighter pilot who commanded a group specifically charged with developing Navy aircraft, states that Spangenberg believes that the Hornet can or should not have been scaled up to replace the Tomcat, and that the Navy could have done better than being forced to choose one of the Lightweight Fighter entries. Both Foster and Spangenberg believe the further development of the Hornet and Super Hornet over the Grumman Tomcat was made as primarily a political decision at the cost of combat capability. He died on November 13, 2000, in an automobile accident.

References

External links

George Spangenberg's website
American aerospace engineers Aerial warfare pioneers 2000 deaths 1912 births 20th-century American engineers {{aviation-bio-stub